Enablers and Barriers of Empathy in Software Developer and User Interactions

In software engineering (SE), effective collaboration between developers and end-users is crucial for creating successful software products. Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, plays a vital role in these interactions. Despite its importance, empathy remains an under-researched human aspect in the SE field. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how empathy is practiced in developer-user interactions and identifying the factors that enable or hinder their empathy. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining empathy tests, observations, and interviews to gather data. The socio-technical grounded theory and descriptive statistics are used to analyse data.

Outcomes:

The research identifies several critical aspects of empathy in SE including specific types of awareness required to trigger empathy in developers, enablers of empathy, barriers to empathy, and strategies to overcome empathy barriers. For the SE research community, this paper provides a foundational understanding of how empathy affects developer-user interactions and offers a framework for future research on empathy in SE. As software developers, by understanding and addressing the enablers and barriers of empathy, developers can improve their interactions with users, leading to more user-centric and successful software products. Incorporating the findings and recommendations from this paper can help software practitioners build more user-friendly and successful software products. By enhancing empathy in developer-user interactions, practitioners can improve communication, design processes, and overall user satisfaction.

See how the data collection was undertaken.

Papers/publications:

Project Lead

Hashini Gunatilake

Project Team

Prof John Grundy, Prof Rashina Hoda, Dr Ingo Mueller

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