Integrating human values in software development using a human values dashboard

Abstract

There is a growing awareness of the importance of human values in software systems. However, limited tools are available to support the integration of human values during software development. Most of these tools are focused on concepts related to specific, well-known human values (e.g., privacy, security) in software engineering. This paper aims to (partially) address this gap by developing a human values dashboard. We conducted a multi-stage study to design, implement and evaluate a human values dashboard. First, an exploratory study was conducted by interviewing 15 software practitioners to investigate the possibility of using a human values dashboard to help address human values in software development, its potential benefits, and required features. Second, we experimented with four Machine Learning approaches to detect the presence of human values in issue discussions. We used the best approach to develop a human values dashboard for software development. The dashboard displays whether any human values are present in each issue discussion. Finally, we interviewed ten different practitioners to investigate the usefulness of the dashboard in practice. This study found that the human values dashboard could help raise awareness, focus attention, and prioritise issues based on the presence of values. This study also identified two potential challenges to the adoption of the dashboard. First, the possible incorrect issues description that can mislead the automated values identification in the dashboard. Second, the lack of willingness of a company to adopt the dashboard.