The Impact of Considering Human Values during Requirements Engineering Activities

TL;DR

Considering human values explicitly during early requirements engineering helps practitioners identify relevant values, connect them to features, and foster innovative, values-aligned software development, as shown in a scenario-based survey.

Contribution

This paper demonstrates the positive impact of explicitly integrating human values into requirements engineering and proposes a practical four-step values elicitation process.

Findings

Values consideration aids in identifying applicable human values.

Practitioners connect values with software features and purposes.

Explicit values focus encourages innovative thinking.

Abstract

Human values, or what people hold important in their life, such as freedom, fairness, and social responsibility, often remain unnoticed and unattended during software development. Ignoring values can lead to values violations in software that can result in financial losses, reputation damage, and widespread social and legal implications. However, embedding human values in software is not only non-trivial but also generally an unclear process. Commencing as early as during the Requirements Engineering (RE) activities promises to ensure fit-for-purpose and quality software products that adhere to human values. But what is the impact of considering human values explicitly during early RE activities? To answer this question, we conducted a scenario-based survey where 56 software practitioners contextualised requirements analysis towards a proposed mobile application for the homeless and suggested values-laden software features accordingly. The suggested features were qualitatively analysed. Results show that explicit considerations of values can help practitioners identify applicable values, associate purpose with the features they develop, think outside-the-box, and build connections between software features and human values. Finally, drawing from the results and experiences of this study, we propose a scenario-based values elicitation process -- a simple four-step takeaway as a practical implication of this study.