Sustainability design in requirements engineering

Abstract

Abstract-Sustainability is now a major concern in society, but there is little understanding of how it is perceived by software engineering professionals and how sustainability design can become an embedded part of software engineering process. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study exploring requirements engineering practitioners' perceptions and attitudes towards sustainability. It identifies obstacles and mitigation strategies regarding the application of sustainability design principles in daily work life. The results of this study reveal several factors that can prevent sustainability design from becoming a first class citizen in software engineering: software practitioners tend to have a narrow understanding of the concept of sustainability; organizations show limited awareness of its potential opportunities and benefits; and the norms in the discipline are not conducive to sustainable outcomes. These findings suggest the need for focused efforts in sustainability education, but also a need to rethink professional norms and practices.

A Catalogue Supporting Software Sustainability Design

“…The concept of sustainability for software design, and its integration into the existing catalogue of design quality attributes is needed to achieve sustainable software [38] and sustainability should also be considered as a quality of software systems like security and usability [39]. Sustainability in software design requires a multidimensional and interdisciplinary approach [40][41][42][43]. Kern et al [44] developed a model for green software based on sustainability criteria, although there are still several software design quality models that include attributes like flexibility and reusability, with no attribute that captures how cost-efficient are the set of design decisions over time.…”

Uncovering sustainability concerns in software product lines

“…A recent study discusses the current perception of sustainability within the requirements engineering practitioners. It is interesting to note that here, the practitioners generally perceive sustainability as mainly pertaining to environmental and economic concerns in private life but do not directly link these notions to their work as software practitioners.…”

Engineering Requirements for Social Sustainability

“…Yet, unfortunately, the software professionals still have very little awareness of these topics [25] and even less practical engagement with them. This is often attributed to the missing methodological support [25] (along with a lack of knowledge, managerial support, etc.).…”

“…Yet, unfortunately, the software professionals still have very little awareness of these topics [25] and even less practical engagement with them. This is often attributed to the missing methodological support [25] (along with a lack of knowledge, managerial support, etc.). Our work provides a simple direction towards integrating social sustainability concerns into requirements engineering practice, thus serving as an enabler for these concerns to be integrated into the SE practice at large [16].…”

“…One of the reasons for this is that requirements engineers do not have clear guidelines on what is "positive impact on communities", and how it can be identified, modeled, or measured [25] (except when the functionality of the software is aimed explicitly at supporting the disadvantaged users, e.g., speech synthesizing software to support those with severe speech impediments [6]). …”