Beacons an initial program comprehension
Susan Wiedenbeck, Jean C. Scholtz · ACM SIGCHI Bulletin · 1989
Beacons are any surface features which typically occur in a program and strongly point to the program's function. In a sort the swap is a beacon because it is typically present and is the prime operation which moves the problem toward the goal of a sorted list. Our objective was to establish a causal connection between the presence of beacons and comprehension of high-level program function.