Integrating human values in software development using a human values dashboard

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.