On the Socialness of Software

On the Socialness of So/ware

Walid Maalej – UTS / HCTD – Dec. 2011 1

Outline of the Talk

Research Challenges

So/ware Socialness

SSE Framework

MoHvaHon

2

1

3

4

2

Reasons for canceled projects

Incomplete Requirements

No customer requirements

Lack of resources

Unrealis9c expecta9ons

Uncontrolled changes of

requirements

User Involvement is CriHcal for the Success of So/ware Projects

13%

12%

11%

10%

9%

Factors of success

Customer/User involvement

Ex. Management support

Clear Statement of

requirements

Proper planning

Realis9c expecta9ons

16%

14%

13%

10%

8%

[Standish Group 2003, recent studies with similar results] 3

State of the Art of User Involvement…

•  Conven9onal soRware processes are transac'onal regarding users are pure consumers

•  Users involved in requirements ac9vi9es

•  “2nd class ci9zen”

…in processes

•  Heterogeneous, vendor specific feedback interfaces

•  User input is difficult to provide since full context informa9on must be entered

•  There is no feedback on the user feedback

…in systems

Serious problems can emerge from this situa9on

4 [Maalej et al. OOPSLA 2009]

Consequence 1: LiWle or no indicators about real so/ware usage

Only download or sales numbers

Consequence 2: Valuable experiences and volunteered resources get lost

Knowledgeable users are unable to contribute easily

Eric von Hippel of M.I.T., leR, and Nathaniel Sims, with hospital devices Sims has modified. Von Hippel says users can improve on products.

[The New York Times, 2007] 8

Consequence 3: Frustrated users can harm the reputaHon of so/ware!

Users organize communi9es against the soRware

Our Vision

1.  Revolutionizing the role of end users

2.  Dissolve the boundaries to software engineers

3.  Make software processes and systems social

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Outline of the Talk

Research Challenges

So/ware Socialness

SSE Framework

MoHvaHon

2

1

3

4

13

Socialness of So/ware

User involvement

Socialness is the degree of involvement of its users and their communi3es in the so4ware lifecycle

•  AcHvely work on specific project ac9vity (e.g. tes9ng, documenta9on, development)

•  Influence management or engineering decision (e.g. give feedback, vote)

Community involvement

•  Externalize important knowledge

•  Share common interests

14

Benchmarking Socialness

TransacHonal

So/ware

Community Involvement

Social

So/ware

Popular

So/ware

CollaboraHve

So/ware

User Involvem

ent

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Measuring User Involvement

1

2

3

4

ContribuHon Quality

ContribuHon Explicitness

ContribuHon Time

ContribuHon Means Individual

Metrics

How is the quality of the contribu9on?

Is the contribu9on explicit (intended) or implicit?

Does the contribu9on occur during the user tasks?

Is the contribu9on integrated into the work environment?

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Measuring Community Involvement

Community Size

Community AcHvity

Community Interweaving

Community AWracHveness Community

Metrics

How many members does the soRware community have?

How is the communica9on volume and topic varia9on in the community?

How is the ra9o of contributors in the whole community?

How is the ra9o of member gain and member loss?

1

2

3

4

Community Metrics

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Outline of the Talk

Research Challenges

So/ware Socialness

SSE Framework

MoHvaHon

2

1

3

4

18

Outline of the Talk

Process

So/ware Socialness

SSE Framework

MoHvaHon

2

1

3

19

Architecture

SNAIL: A Social So/ware Engineering Process

Community Observation

User Observation

ProactiveFeedback

Update

SystematicAnalysis

Decision

Engi-neering

Time

20



User Observation

ProactiveFeedback

Update

SystematicAnalysis

Decision

Engi-neering

Time

Con9nuous gathering of context informa9on to understand circumstances under which a user provides feedback

21



User Observation

ProactiveFeedback

Update

SystematicAnalysis

Decision

Engi-neering

Time

Systema9c observa9on of user communi9es to gather input and benefit from social dynamics

22



User Observation

ProactiveFeedback

Update

SystematicAnalysis

Decision

Engi-neering

Time

Proac9vely ask users to provide individual and social feedback to improve soRware (e.g. in problem situa9ons)

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User Observation

ProactiveFeedback

Update

SystematicAnalysis

Decision

Engi-neering

Time

Reduce the amount of informa9on for engineers and iden9fy conflic9ng preferences

24



User Observation

ProactiveFeedback

Update

SystematicAnalysis

Decision

Engi-neering

Time

Give users the possibility to influence ac9ons triggered by the analysis (e.g. vote, rate, comment)

25



User Observation

ProactiveFeedback

Update

SystematicAnalysis

Decision

Engi-neering

Time

Inform users about engineering decisions and ra9onale and propagate changes to soRware

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Outline of the Talk

Process

So/ware Socialness

SSE Framework

MoHvaHon

2

1

3

27

Architecture

FastFix Reference Architecture

Social

Media

Social Engineering Client

Social Engineering Center

Context System

User Feedback System

User Feedback Analysis System

Back-‐Feedback System

Applica9on Engineering Environment

Applica9on Usage Environment Target Applica9on

Community Center

Communica9on System

Communica9on System

Social Media Bridge

Social Media Bridge

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Context ObservaHon and Processing

problem problem

ExecuHon Ontology

InteracHon Ontology

Feedback ReporHng Interface

OS sensors

User Profile

ElicitaHon

Problem

events

update

trigger

ApplicaHon sensors

Exec. Env. sensors

AddiHonal feedback

interact

Session-‐ izaHon

Context System

www.teamweaver.org www.fasaixproject.eu 29

Unified Interface for User Feedback

SNAIL Feedback Report

Provide feedback Use this form to report on your experience.

This report will contain additional context information that helps to understand your experience.

Share with the community

I agree to make this experience report public to create awareness about my experience in the community.

Show additional information

I did not understand the export dialog. It said export to, but instead it only saved the document to the specified folder.

Tag your report

Use tags to help other users find your report and to help engineers understand your experience.

export, usability, difficulty

Mark similar reports

Context information included

SNAIL has found reports that are similar to yours. Help to focus by selecting relevant similar reports. Show similar reports

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Community Center on Social Media

SNAIL Community Center

Help others

Documentation Discussions

Help other users with their problems.

Knowledgebase

Get information

Documentation Discussions

Browse through the knowledgebase or ask questions.

Knowledgebase

Development corner

Feature request list List of known errors

Contribute to make the software better.

Source code repository

Provide feedback

Report error Request modification

Report on your experience.

Report experience

Future directions

Request feature Vote on features

Influence the future development directions.

Vote on release plan

Test bed

Beta download page Release plan

Perform tests of early versions.

Source code repository

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Example of Community Center FuncHonality

SNAIL Feature Requests

Influence future directions

Request new feature On this page you can request new features and vote on existing ones.

Dennis (17 features)

Creator:

votes

1746

!"#

Add a PDF export feature. Currently files can only be saved in the proprietary SNL format. Interchange with other platforms would be a very important feature.

View comments Add comment

Walid (19 features)

Creator:

votes

1031

!"#

It would be helpful to be able to compare two documents. Currently this is only possible using a workaround.

View comments Add comment

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Example of User Feedback Analysis

SNAIL Social Analytics

Documentation statistics This page shows statistics about the documentation of SNAIL written by users.

2000

1000

April 2011 May 2011 June 2011 July 2011

Documented Features

Visualization options

Overall statistics By component

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Outline of the Talk

Research Challenges

So/ware Socialness

SSE Framework

MoHvaHon

2

1

3

4

34

Challenges for So/ware Socialness

Scalability

ContribuHon Quality

Conflict ResoluHon

IntegraHon

Human Issues

Cultural Issues

Different types

of challenges

Huge amount of gathered (unstructured) data complicates manual

analysis Unpredictable content and varying quality, complicates automated analysis

Conflic9ng preferences and input, complica9ng manual iden9fica9on and resolu9on techniques

Diverse systems and technologies have to be monitored and integrated

Ensure the privacy of users, giving incenHves to contribute in a usable non-‐intrusive manner

Accep9ng users as contributors requires a

paradigm shiR in commercial organiza9ons

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Summary of the Talk

Making user involvement and user

communiHes a first order concern of so/ware

systems and processes

So/ware Socialness

•  Degree of user and community "involvement in the software lifecycle

•  Benchmark for assessing socialness "of software

SSE Framework

•  Social engineering process (SNAIL) "involves users thoroughly and continuously

•  Reference architecture integrated into target application and engineering environment

Challenges •  Main challenges are in the systematic

analysis of continuous user feedback

•  Other cultural and human challenges

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For Feedback, QuesHons and CollaboraHon...

Dennis Pagano [email protected]

Walid Maalej [email protected]

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On the Socialness of Software

Technology

Transcript of On the Socialness of Software