This article argues that human values-such as responsibility, transparency, creativity, and equality-are heavily under-represented in software engineering methods. Based on experiences with real-world projects with not-for-profits, we explore how human values can be integrated into existing participatory agile practices. We propose new ways of considering human values in software practice, including: the use of the Schwartz taxonomy of human values and values portraits to contextualise values definitions; the use of values as a way to capture the rationale for requirements to ensure a culture of values throughout the software lifecycle; and a simple adaptation of agile methods to include a role for a 'critical friend' who can champion values during decision making.
Social Software Engineering (Social SE), that is SE aiming to promote positive social change, is a rapidly emerging area. Here, software and digital artefacts are seen as tools for social change, rather than end products or 'solutions'. Moreover, Social SE requires a sustained buy-in from a range of stakeholders and end-users working in partnership with multidisciplinary software development teams often at a distance. This context poses new challenges to software engineering: it requires both an agile approach for handling uncertainties in the software development process, and the application of participatory, creative design processes to bridge the knowledge asymmetries and the geographical distances in the partnership. This paper argues for the role of design thinking in Social SE and highlights its implications for software engineering in general. It does so by reporting on the contributions that design thinkingand in particular physical design-has brought to (1) the problem space definition, (2) user requirements capture and (3) system feature design of a renewable energy forecasting system developed in partnership with a remote Scottish Island community.
In many parts of the world, the electricity supply industry makes the task of dealing with unpredictable spikes and dips in production and demand invisible to consumers, maintaining a seemingly unlimited supply. A future increase in reliance on time-variable renewable sources of electricity may lead to greater fluctuations in supply. We engaged remote islanders as equal partners in a research project that investigated through technology-mediated enquiry the topic of synchronising energy consumption with supply, and together built a prototype renewable energy forecast display. A number of participants described a change in their practices, saving high energy tasks for times when local renewable energy was expected to be available, despite having no financial incentive to do so. The main contributions of this paper are in: 1) the results of co-development sessions exploring systems supporting synchronising consumption with supply and 2) the findings arising from the deployment of the prototype.
The realization that software has a far reaching impact on politics, society and the environment is not new. However, only recently software impact has been explicitly described as 'systemic' and framed around complex social problems such as sustainability. We argue that 'wicked' social problems are consequences of the interplay between complex economical, technical and political interactions and their underlying value choices. Such choices are guided by specific sets of human values that have been found in all cultures by extensive evidence-based research. The aim of this paper is to give more visibility to the interrelationship between values and SE choices. To this end, we first introduce the concept of Values-First SE and reflect on its implications for software development. Our contribution to SE is embedding the principles of values research in the SE decision making process and extracting lessons learned from practice.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.