The evidence-based paradigm has made software engineering (SE) more objective and less imprecise, facilitating extensive decision-making activities in software projects. However, by referring to the four-theory classificatory scheme, it can be observed that evidence-based SE mainly focuses on empirically developing descriptive theories from SE practices, and directly using descriptions to make predictions and suggest prescriptions, without emphasising the establishment and utilisation of explanatory theories for comprehensively understanding SE phenomena. In keeping with the pioneering viewpoint that regards explainability as a first-class citizen of SE in the future, we urge the development of explainable SE as a dedicated research field that pursues the state of the art beyond the state of the practice of SE. To support this forward-looking vision, we have developed an extensible framework, two factorial strategies, and a set of augmented empirical methods as the preliminary responses to two root research questions what to explain and how to explain and one derived research question how to identify proper explanations. As such, although at a vision stage, our current work has paved the way forward towards a more explainable future of SE that will bring various benefits to different stakeholders in the software ecosystem.

This innovative practice paper presents a work-inprogress on the design of a 'play-kit' to introduce incoming first-year university students to diverse thinking styles through playful interactions, addressing the need for adaptable problemsolving skills development required to tackle increasingly complex global socio-technical challenges. Our initial design stage involves creating a prototype physical workbook to stimulate computational thinking skills through play. We will adapt lessons from existing computational thinking material, originally designed as a classroom-based tool for primary school students. We customize lessons for university students, and re-work them so that they become self-directed learning activities. Our workbook emphasizes essential computational components - decomposition, algorithms, pattern recognition, logic, representation, and abstraction. In time, the project will offer both physical and online 'Learning to Think' play-kits to widen accessibility and suit a diversity of learning styles.

This paper presents the design and implementation of a two-week hackathon at a large prestigious UK university, focused on creating sustainable solutions leveraging generative artificial intelligence (genAI). The hackathon deviated from the traditional one to three-day format, providing an extended period for ideation, development, and public voting. The event aimed to foster innovation, engage the local community in sustainability efforts, and augment participants' problem-solving capabilities through the use of genAI. The hackathon incorporated inclusivity measures based on evidence-based recommendations, ensuring diverse participation and a supportive environment. The participants could choose from four challenges to create a solution around that were based on local sustainability issues: housing regeneration, promoting sustainable and active travel, revitalizing the city center, and increasing re-naturing within the city. Teams were formed using a mix of self-selection and pre-assignment. Participants had access to comprehensive resources, including workshops on jupyter notebooks, genAI, video creation, and support from mentors. The final outputs each team was expected to produce was a 90 second video that detailed the challenge, their proposed solution, how they used open data, how they used genAI either in their solution or in their work process, as well as any files required for their solution to run/compile. The video was also to be used for the public vote, to decide the people's choice award, and hence could be promotional in nature but everyone in the team had to contribute to it in a meaningful way. Thus, they do not have to appear in it but could write a script or edit, etc. Judging criteria focused on the quality of the presentation, creativity, effective use of open data, and engagement with genAI. The event concluded with awards for the most polished solution, most creative idea, best use of open data, best use of genAI, best overall, and a people's choice award decided by a public vote. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge on leveraging genAI for sustainability and offers insights into develoning inclusive and impactful hackathons.

The study of human values in software engineering (SE) is increasingly recognised as a fundamental human-centric issue of SE decision making. However, values studies in SE still face a number of issues, including the difficulty of eliciting values in a systematic and structured way, the challenges of measuring and tracking values over time, and the lack of practice-based understanding of values among software practitioners. This paper aims to help address these issues by: 1) outlining a research framework that supports a systematic approach to values elicitation, analysis, and understanding; 2) introducing tools and techniques that help elicit and measure values during SE decision making processes in a systematic way; and 3) applying such tools to a month-long research sprint co-designed with an industry partner and conducted with 27 software practitioners. The case study builds on lessons from an earlier pilot (12 participants) and combines in-situ observations with the use of two values-informed tools: the Values Q-Sort (V-QS), and the Values-Retro. The V-QS adapts instruments from values research to the SE context, the Values-Retro adapts existing SE techniques to values theory. We distil implications for research and practice in ten lessons learned.

Agile is an established software development methodology that helps develop software by improving time to market, quality, customer engagement and reducing costs. Factors underpinning its adoption have been widely researched. However, most of these studies have been conducted in developed countries, particularly Europe and North America, with only a handful carried out in developing countries, including the Middle East. This is problematic given the strategic and economic importance of the software industry in such places as Saudi Arabia, where Agile adoption remains in the early stages, despite heavy investment in this industry in recent years to diversify its oil-dependent economy. Therefore, this study empirically investigates the factors influencing Agile adoption by Saudi Arabian software small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To this end, in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 software practitioners from three software SMEs. Our findings reveal that human factors, such as customer involvement, team capability, organisational culture and national culture, are considered the most impactful factors affecting the adoption of Agile as opposed to technical ones, such as the availability of specific tools or techniques.

Sustained participation is critical to the success of digital citizen-science initiatives, yet much of the current literature focuses on mapping people’s motives to engage without considering the extent to which participation is sustained over time. We conducted a year-long experimental study (n=85) “in-thewild” to explore the effects of human-value orientations on the use of digital citizen-science tools. Participants took part in both the co-design and use of digital citizen-science tools in Lappeenranta, Finland from 2018–2019. Our statistical analysis finds evidence of relations between value orientations, sustained participation, and the number and quality of digital interactions. Specifically, we find that value orientations are linked with different usage patterns. For instance, people with a stronger openness-to-change (OTC) values tended to use the mobile application to check others’ submissions, even when they had nothing to submit, whereas people with stronger security values mostly used the application when they had something relevant to submit. Further understanding the influence of human values in digital citizen science is a promising area for future research that could contribute to a) guide the design of incentive mechanisms, b) understand user experiences in online communities, and c) inform the design and evaluation of digital citizen-science technologies.

Participatory sensing (PS) and citizen science hold promises for a genuinely interactive and inclusive citizen engagement in meaningful and sustained collection of data about social and environmental phenomena. Yet the underlying motivations for public engagement in PS remain still unclear particularly regarding the role of gamification, for which HCI research findings are often inconclusive. This paper reports the findings of an experimental study specifically designed to further understand the effects of gamification on citizen engagement. Our study involved the development and implementation of two versions (gamified and non-gamified) of a mobile application designed to capture lake ice coverage data in the sub-arctic region. Emerging findings indicate a statistically significant effect of gamification on participants' engagement levels in PS. The motivation, approach and results of our study are outlined and implications of the findings for future PS design are reflected.

Background: Human values, such as prestige, social justice, and financial success, influence software production decision-making processes. While their subjectivity makes some values difficult to measure, their impact on software motivates our research. Aim: To contribute to the scientific understanding and the empirical investigation of human values in Software Engineering (SE). Approach: Drawing from social psychology, we consider values as mental representations to be investigated on three levels: at a system (L1), personal (L2), and instantiation level (L3). Method: We design and develop a selection of tools for the investigation of values at each level, and focus on the design, development, and use of the Values Q-Sort. Results: From our study with 12 software practitioners, it is possible to extract three values `prototypes' indicative of an emergent typology of values considerations in SE. Conclusions: The Values Q-Sort generates quantitative values prototypes indicating values relations (L1) as well as rich personal narratives (L2) that reflect specific software practices (L3). It thus offers a systematic, empirical approach to capturing values in SE.

Identifying which agile methods and processes are most effective depends on the goals and aims of an organisation. Agile development promotes an environment of continuous improvement and trust within self-organising teams. Therefore, it is important to allow teams to have the flexibility to customize and tailor their chosen methods. However, in a large-scale agile deployment, there needs to be a degree of process standardization across the organisation; otherwise, different teams will not be able to effectively share knowledge and best practices. This paper addresses the classic CSCW issue of the tensions that arise between process standardization and flexibility in a large-scale agile development through a case study at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

This paper presents a digital relay baton that connects long-distance runners with distributed online spectators. The baton broadcasts athletes? live locative data to a social network and communicates back remote-crowd support through haptic and audible cheers. Our work takes an exploratory design approach to bring new insights into the design of real-time techno-mediated social support. The prototype was deployed during a 170-mile charity relay race across the UK with 13 participants, 261 on-line supporters, and gathered a total of 3,153 'cheers'. We report on the insights collected during the design and deployment process and identify three fundamental design considerations: the degree of spectator expression that the design affords, the context applicability, and the data flow within the social network.

For many people living with conditions such as autism, anxiety manifests so powerfully it has a big impact on quality of life. By investigating the suitability of truly customizable wearable health devices we build on prior research that found each experience of anxiety in people with autism is unique, so 'one-suits all' solutions are not suitable. In addition, users desire agency and control in all aspects of the system. The participative approach we take is to iteratively co-develop prototypes with end users. Here we describe a case study of the co-development of one prototype, a digital stretch wristband that records interaction for later reflection called Snap. Snap has been designed to sit within a platform that allows the distributed and sustainable design, manufacture and data analysis of customizable digital health technologies. We contribute to HCI with (1) lessons learned from a DIY co-development process that follows the principles of modularity, participation and iteration and (2) the potential impact of technology in self-management of anxiety and the broader design implications of addressing unique anxiety experiences.

Organizations increasingly rely on digital tools, such as social media, to harvest public opinion on a variety of issues ranging from brand reputations to political debates. One area in which digital tools have great potential is in consultation on design of public spaces. Public organizations are expected to consult with users of a public space before, during and after occupancy. Digital tools could increase the effectiveness of this consultation because: (i) they are available 24 h and do not rely on the presence of researchers and (ii) data are collected and analysed using automated methods, allowing faster decision-making. Despite these potential advantages, little is understood about how digital and non-digital consultations compare in practice. This paper reports on a live trial with a prototype digital consultation tool called VoiceYourView, which was co-designed with stakeholders and used to canvass opinion on the refurbishment of a major metropolitan library. Over 6 weeks, we used a variety of methods to collect comment from 600 users. VoiceYourView solicits opinion in unprompted form—it does not ask specific questions as in a survey—so users can say anything they like at any time. VoiceYourView carries out real-time analysis of data collected and uses public display screens to summarize comments-to-date in situ. Our research methods focused on observational studies conducted ‘in the wild’: this allowed us to capture user interactions with VoiceYourView in a realistic setting. Our findings indicate that VoiceYourView encouraged more positive feedback than non-digital methods. We also find that positive comments in general contain less actionable information than negative comments, and unprompted comments have similar actionable content to prompted comments. We suggest that this pattern in soliciting more (traditionally difficult to obtain) positive comments with VoiceYourView versus traditional survey methods implies that digital consultation tools of this type can complement existing channels.

Many studies have shown that crowd-support, such as cheering during sport events, can have a positive impact on athletes' performance. However, up until recently this support was only possible if the supporters and the athletes were geographically co-located. Can cheering be done remotely and would this be effective? In this paper we investigate the effect and possibilities of live remote cheering on co-located athletes and online supporting crowds that have a weak social tie and no social tie with the athlete. We recruit 140 online spectators and 5 athletes for an ad-hoc 5km road race. Results indicate that crowds socially closer to the athletes are significantly more engaged in the support. The athletes were excited by live remote cheering from friendsourced spectators and cheering from unknown crowdsourced participants indicating that remote friends and outsourced spectators could be an important source of support.

In many parts of the world, the electricity supply industry makes the task of dealing with unpredictable spikes and dips in production and demand invisible to consumers, maintaining a seemingly unlimited supply. A future increase in reliance on time-variable renewable sources of electricity may lead to greater fluctuations in supply. We engaged remote islanders as equal partners in a research project that investigated through technology-mediated enquiry the topic of synchronising energy consumption with supply, and together built a prototype renewable energy forecast display. A number of participants described a change in their practices, saving high energy tasks for times when local renewable energy was expected to be available, despite having no financial incentive to do so. The main contributions of this paper are in: 1) the results of co-development sessions exploring systems supporting synchronising consumption with supply and 2) the findings arising from the deployment of the prototype.

Social Software Engineering (Social SE), that is SE aiming to promote positive social change, is a rapidly emerging area. Here, software and digital artefacts are seen as tools for social change, rather than end products or 'solutions'. Moreover, Social SE requires a sustained buy-in from a range of stakeholders and end-users working in partnership with multidisciplinary software development teams often at a distance. This context poses new challenges to software engineering: it requires both an agile approach for handling uncertainties in the software development process, and the application of participatory, creative design processes to bridge the knowledge asymmetries and the geographical distances in the partnership. This paper argues for the role of design thinking in Social SE and highlights its implications for software engineering in general. It does so by reporting on the contributions that design thinking -- and in particular physical design -- has brought to (1) the problem space definition, (2) user requirements capture and (3) system feature design of a renewable energy forecasting system developed in partnership with a remote Scottish Island community.

There is growing research interest in exploring how biometric data is and can be shared across online social networks. However, most existing tools for sharing biometric data lock researchers into vendor-specific solutions that cannot be easily adapted to the specific researchers' requirements, users' needs and ethical considerations.

This paper presents Clasp, a novel tactile anxiety management, communication and peer support tool developed with, by and for adults diagnosed with High Functioning Autism (HFA). Clasp connects a tactile anxiety coping device to a smartphone, which records and communicates anxiety levels for self-feedback and reflection. By adopting an iterative prototyping approach, we gained a deep insight into anxiety experienced by adults with HFA and evaluated the role of digital technology in its management. The paper describes our development approach, which we argue is unique to this multidisciplinary and multiorganizational design context involving hard-to-reach and vulnerable groups. Finally, we reflect on lessons learned from this process and share a set of design implications for the future development of digital tools that, like Clasp, are specifically designed with, by and for adults with HFA.

A number of studies in the literature have looked into the use of real-time biometric data to improve one's own physiological performance and wellbeing. However, there is limited research that looks into the effects that sharing biometric data with others could have on one's social network. Following a period of research on existing mobile applications and prototype testing, we developed a system, HeartLink, which collects real-time personal biometric data such as heart rate and broadcasts this data online. Insights gained on designing systems to broadcast real-time biometric data are presented. In this paper we also report emerging results from testing HeartLink in a pilot study and a user study that were conducted during sport events. The results showed that sharing heart rate data does influence the relationship of the persons involved and that the degree of influence seems related to the tie strength prior to visualizing the data.

This paper reports on VoiceYourView, a kind of intelligent kiosk, which uses speech recognition and natural language processing to gather the public's creative input on the public space designs. Over a six week period, VoiceYourView was deployed in a public space and 2000 design critiques were collected from 600 people. The paper shows that people are capable of providing creative input on their environment using unstructured speech or text and that a good proportion of these comments are actionable. The paper also investigates the use of public displays to auto-summarize comments left by the public so far. Although there is anecdotal evidence that this encourages participation, an experiment found that filtering comments (e.g., to display only positive responses) had no effect on what people had to say.

Case‐base maintenance is an important emerging issue for case‐base reasoners as they scale up to handle real‐world problems in unstable environments. Over time, the contents of a case base may become out of date or inconsistent with the target problem space, and maintenance strategies must be devised to help recognize and repair these problems by deleting, adding, or modifying cases, for example. In this article we describe a maintenance framework called collaborative maintenance (CM), which has been designed to facilitate, monitor, and control the incremental update of live, dynamic case bases. Our approach is novel in that it automatically supports a distributed, interactive maintenance process—users are permitted to recommend case updates, and the collaborative maintenance process ensures that these recommendations are properly reviewed and actioned.