The Design Thinking of Co-located vs. Distributed Software Developers: Distance Strikes Again!
The Design Thinking of Co-located vs. Distributed Software Developers: Distance Strikes Again!
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共地办公与分布式软件开发人员的设计思维：距离再次来袭！
DOI：
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发表时间：
2020
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
M. Chaudron
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Rodi Jolak;A. Wortmann;Grischa Liebel;Eric Umuhoza;M. Chaudron
背景：设计软件是软件开发人员思考并做出最终塑造软件产品结构和行为的设计决策的活动。目前，设计软件是软件开发人员从事的最不为人所知的活动之一。在协作设计环境中，地理、文化或社会距离等距离可能会导致社会技术挑战，从而潜在地影响软件的设计方式。目的：通过研究地理距离对协同软件设计的影响，加深对软件设计的理解。方法：通过多个案例的研究，深入探讨了协同设计环境下协同开发人员的设计思维。结果：与协同开发人员相比，分散开发人员对问题空间的探索更少，而对解决方案空间的关注更多。这可能与分布式协作带来的不同社会技术挑战有关，例如缺乏意识和共识。结论：我们的发现有助于加深对软件设计如何受地理距离影响的理解。从事协同设计的开发人员需要意识到，在分布式环境中减少了问题空间的探索，这将对开发成就和客户满意度产生不利影响。CCS概念·软件及其工程→设计软件；软件开发中的协作；抽象、建模和模块化；软件系统模型；·社会和专业主题→地理特征；·一般和参考→经验研究；设计。
Context: Designing software is an activity in which software developers think and make design decisions that ultimately shape the structure and behavior of software products. Currently, designing software is one of the least understood activities in which software developers engage. In a collaborative design setting, distances such as geographic, cultural, or social distance can lead to socio-technical challenges that potentially affect the way software is designed. Objective: To contribute to an increased understanding of software design, we investigate how geographic distance affects collaborative software design.Method: To this end, we conducted a multiple-case study exploring in depth the design thinking of co-located and distributed software developers in a collaborative design setting.Results: We find that, compared to co-located developers, distributed developers practice less problem space exploration and focus instead more on the solution space. This could be related to different socio-technical challenges caused by distributed collaboration, such as lack of awareness and common understanding.Conclusion: Our findings contribute to an increased understanding as to how software design is affected by geographic distance. Developers engaging in collaborative design need to be aware that problem space exploration is reduced in a distributed setting, which would adversely affect the development achievement and therefore customer satisfaction.CCS CONCEPTS• Software and its engineering → Designing software; Collaboration in software development; Abstraction, modeling and modularity; Software system models; • Social and professional topics → Geographic characteristics; • General and reference → Empirical studies; Design.