Operationalizing human values in software: a research roadmap

Abstract

Software influences several aspects of people's lives and therefore needs to reflect their values. However, existing software engineering methods fail to account for human values, which may result in breaching those values in software and, therefore, dissatisfaction of users and loss of profit and reputation. To avoid such negative consequences, human values need to be integrated -- in a verifiable way -- into software. We refer to this as Operationalizing Human Values in Software. But this is not easy to achieve due to three main obstacles: first, human values are hard to define in a way that can be put into practice; second, existing software design decisions are mainly ignorant of values; finally, values are hard to determine and quantify in software. This paper aims to establish a research roadmap for overcoming these obstacles. The proposed roadmap focuses on (i) establishing practical definitions for human values, (ii) integrating values into software design, and (iii) measuring values in the software development life cycle.