An Exploratory Study of Software Sustainability at Early Stages of Software Development
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. The Existing Studies
The Existing Studies Summary and Gap Identification
3. Sustainability Practitioners’ Perspective
3.1. Study Aim and Research Objectives
3.2. Research Questions
3.2.1. RO 1: Investigate Knowledge
3.2.2. RO 2: Investigate Importance
3.2.3. RO 3: Investigate Support/Organizational Support
3.3. Survey Design
3.3.1. Protocol
3.3.2. Questionnaire
- Participants Categorization: The goal of this category was to investigate the participant profile, which included information such as gender, name, age, level of education, and professional experience.
- Organization Categorization: This category looked into the companies’ demographics including sector, type of organization, certifications, and the role played by participants inside the company.
- Research Objective 1 (sustainability knowledge): The purpose of this category was to examine the respondent’s understanding of sustainability along its dimensions in general as well as of sustainability in relation to software. We also examined respondents’ ability to identify sustainability requirements. Moreover, how the respondent felt about adopting sustainability as a quality feature was also examined.
- Research Objective 2 (sustainability importance): This category was intended to learn about how significant sustainability is in the eyes of professionals when it comes to software design and development.
- Research Objective 3 (sustainability support): This category was intended to look into how the respondent’s employer develops software and to determine which and to what extent sustainability aspects are considered during software development.
- Questionnaire must be completely filled.
- The respondent must be working as a software professional in the South Asian region.
- Incomplete questionnaire.
- For instance, individuals working as human resource managers and those working in the educational field as research assistants, students, and teachers.
3.3.3. Survey Response Analysis
- For close-ended questions that allowed multiple responses, the aggregate of percentages was above 100%;
- For closed questions that accepted a single outcome, the percentages were calculated based on the response chosen;
- Coding strategy was applied to open questions that inquired about sustainability measures in practice, software tools supporting sustainability, and organization certification types. Two of the authors coded the replies and compared their results to come up with a single coding scheme;
- For the open-ended question that explored sustainability requirements regarding particular software applications, we included extracts from the qualitative replies. Each extract is tagged with a unique identifier to distinguish it from the rest. For instance, [*1] signifies the first extract.
3.4. Results of Survey
3.4.1. Participants’ Demographics
3.4.2. Organizations’ Demographics
3.4.3. Research Questions Responses
RO 1: Investigate Knowledge
RO 2: Investigate Importance
RO 3: Investigate Support
4. Survey Observations
- Sustainable SE field is still in its immaturity.The Sustainable SE field is still emerging. The software industry continues to see sustainability as a secondary concern. Although the practitioner community is aware of the concept of sustainability and its dimensions in general, they lack the understanding of sustainability in relation to software. Therefore, the software industry needs to be familiarized with it so that software designers and developers take sustainability into account during the software design and development process.
- Sustainability is important.Even though professionals possess a limited understanding of sustainability in the context of software design and development, they still consider it important and beneficial.
- Sustainability is not just Green.Software practitioners misunderstand sustainable software with Green software. Being Green is one aspect of being sustainable but sustainability is beyond Green. Practitioners need to consider the impacts of software systems on all sustainability dimensions rather than just focusing on environmental effects.
- Technical sustainability takes priority.The concept of sustainability stands on five pillars, namely: Environmental, Social, Economic, Technical, and Individual. All of these dimensions are equally significant, but in industry the technical aspect of sustainability is given the most weight.
- Sustainability requirements are challenging.Because professionals lack the understanding and expertise to integrate sustainability in relation to the software, they are unable to accurately identify the sustainability requirements for software systems.
- Trade-off between sustainability and software cost is justified.Practitioners believe that increasing software costs is justified in order to incorporate sustainability into software systems.
- Sustainability incorporation tools would be beneficial.The implementation of sustainability is not generally known among software professionals. They link traditional software development frameworks, processes, and tools to sustainability. However, the majority of experts agree that it would be extremely beneficial if there were software tools that might help with sustainability incorporation, particularly sustainability requirement identification.
5. Sustainability Incorporation during Software Design
5.1. Catalog for Sustainability Guidelines
- Select any software system that needs to be analyzed with respect to sustainability.
- Analyze selected software system based on each of the five sustainability dimensions.
- For each dimension, identify the direct, indirect, and systemic effects of the software.
- Based on the identified effects, drive sustainability goals for their effective mitigation.
- Next, identify the available software features that can be improved to achieve the derived goals. If none of the available features can be used, then recommend new features for the achievement of the driven goals.
- Provide guidelines for the effective application of the sustainability goals using the software features.
- [MS WORD REQ-01] Sustainability requirement 01 recommends launching the application in different energy modes. It may introduce three modes: (1) economic (energy-friendly mode), (2) standard, and (3) advanced mode. The economic mode allows only basic features and removes all additional software features that are costly in terms of energy consumption. For example: disable features such as auto save, spell check, and design. The standard mode should allow only some of the energy costly features, while the advanced mode has full flash word features. A user may switch between these modes;
- [MS WORD REQ-02] The application shall show the print preview of documents based on the current amount of ink in the toner. The user shall decide whether to take a print or not under the current ink conditions. This feature may reduce the amount of reprinting;
- [MS WORD REQ-03] Educate the users regarding resource savings such as toner ink and saving over time due to avoidance of reprinting documents.
5.2. Sustainability Guidelines for Design of Software Systems
- Just as there is a provision of energy profiles in hardware systems, this consideration should also be taken into account while designing software systems. Support for energy profiles would allow users to utilize the software based on their work needs i.e., the software can be launched in basic or energy-efficient mode with only the required features, thus lowering the hardware’s energy requirement.
- Applications supporting printing features should also contain features that encourage the saving of printing resources (i.e., paper and toner).
- Software applications can be exploited from the perspective of imparting sustainable thinking in their users. Applications can be used to change user mindsets, and to make it happen applications should provide feedback to users based on their choices. For instance, if a user’s choice saved a computing resource, the applications should provide feedback in the form of notifications.
- Location-based applications should provide incentives for fuel savings, packaging reduction, and so on.
6. Threats to Validity
6.1. Construct Validity
6.2. Internal Validity
6.3. External Validity
6.4. Reliability
7. Conclusions
- More studies should detail practical guidelines on making software systems sustainable during their design and development.
- Sustainability is not explicitly supported by the present SE procedures. Therefore, it is necessary to establish precise standards for its implementation.
- Future research should attempt to create software prototypes that could suggest sustainability requirements for different types of software systems.
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Ref | Research Study | Research Description | Geo-Location |
---|---|---|---|
[14] | Research Type:
Qualitative Research Instrument: Questionnaire Sample Category Industry Sample Size: 97 | Purpose: Industry awareness about sustainable Software Engineering. Target Audience: Brazilian software practitioners. Dimension: Technical, Social, Environmental, and Economic. Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Brazil |
[17] | Research Type: Quantitative Research Instrument: Questionnaire Sample Category Industry and Academia Sample Size: 108 | Purpose: Identification of challenges in Green and sustainable software development. Target Audience: Not solely affiliated with the IT industry. Dimension: Environmental. Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Multiple countries including Pakistan |
[18] | Research Type: Quantitative and Qualitative Research Instrument: Questionnaire and Document Analysis Sample Category Academia Sample Size: 144 | Purpose: Sustainability awareness in Higher Education Institute (HEI) students. Target Audience: University students affiliated with IT (Information Technology), Computer Science, and Software Engineering. Dimension: Environmental, Social, and Economic Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Pakistan |
[19] | Research Type: Quantitative Research Instrument: Questionnaire Sample Category General Public Sample Size: 906 | Purpose: Awareness of software sustainability dimensions and their characteristics. Target Audience: Saudi Arabian Software Users. Dimension: Technical, Social, Environmental, Economic, and Political. Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Saudi Arabia |
[20] | Research Type: Quantitative Research Instrument: Questionnaire Sample Category General Public. Sample Size: 906 | Purpose: Understanding user perspective of software sustainability. Target Audience: Citizens of Saudi Arabia. Dimension: Technical, Social, Environmental, Economic, and Political. Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Saudi Arabia |
[21] | Research Type: Quantitative Research Instrument: Questionnaire Sample Category General public and Organizations Sample Size: 500 | Purpose: Awareness relating to sustainable development goals. Target Audience: General public and employees. Dimension: Sustainable Development Goals Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Pakistan |
[22] | Research Type: Quantitative and qualitative Research Instrument: Questionnaire and interviews Sample Category Industry Sample Size: 464 + 18 | Purpose: Professionals’ perception of energy consumption during SDLC Target Audience: Professionals (ABB, Google, IBM, and Microsoft). Dimension: Environmental Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Unknown |
[23] | Research Type: Quantitative and Qualitative Research Instrument: Questionnaire and Interviews Sample Category Industry Sample Size: 122 | Purpose: Programmers’ awareness of software energy consumption. Target Audience: Developers Dimension: Environmental Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Unknown |
[15] | Research Type: Qualitative Research Instrument: Interviews Sample Category Industry Sample Size: 10 | Purpose: Understanding software sustainability adaptation in practice. Target Audience: Software Project Team Leads (9 companies). Dimension: Environmental, Social, Economic, Technical, and Individual. Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Austria |
[24] | Research Type: Quantitative Research Instrument: Questionnaire Sample Category Industry Sample Size: 53 | Purpose: Energy-related impact of quality to develop environmentally sustainable software. Target Audience: Software Professionals (7 separate companies). Dimension: Environmental. Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Turkey |
[25] | Research Type: Mixed-Method Research Instrument: Questionnaire, Interview, and Contextual Inquiry Sample Category Canteen Sector (End-users of a decision support system (DSS)) Sample Size: 60 + 18 + 1 | Purpose: Sustainability requirements and positive enabling effects of software on environmental sustainability. Target Audience: Meal Planners Dimension: Environmental Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: Elicitation and comparison between traditional and sustainability requirements in the context of positive enabling effects for a canteen DSS. | Unknown |
[16] | Research Type: Qualitative Research Instrument: Questionnaire Sample Category Industry Sample Size: 25 | Purpose: Practitioners’ views of sustainable practices. Target Audience: Software Engineers Dimension: Environmental, Economic, Social, and Technical Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: N/A | Brazil |
[26] | Research Type: Qualitative Research Instrument: Interviews Sample Category Industry Sample Size: 98 | Purpose: Recommendations for improving sustainability from developers’ view. Target Audience: Research Software Engineers Dimension: Not stated/given Sustainability Guidelines/Requirements: Developer-defined recommendations are provided for research software only. | United Kingdom |
Total Responses | Incomplete Responses | Completed Responses | Valid Responses | Average Response Time in Minutes | Responses Completion Rate |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
221 | 10 | 211 | 201 | 15 | 83% |
S. No | Parameter | Classification | Sample Size |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Age in years | 18 to 24 | 39 |
25 to 34 | 137 | ||
35 to 44 | 25 | ||
2 | Gender | Male | 157 |
Female | 44 | ||
3 | Experience in years | Less than 1 | 23 |
1 to 3 | 48 | ||
4 to 6 | 64 | ||
7 to 10 | 45 | ||
Above 10 | 21 | ||
4 | Education | Graduate | 149 |
Postgraduate | 52 |
S. No | Parameter | Classification | Sample Size |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Organization Sector | Public | 30 |
Private | 171 | ||
2 | Organization Type | Startup | 24 |
Consulting Company | 21 | ||
Software House | 131 | ||
Educational Institution | 5 | ||
Others | 20 | ||
3 | Certifications | None | 76 |
Not Known | 92 | ||
Certified | 33 |
S. No | Proposed Sustainability Goal | Goal-Feature Mapping | Sustainability Guideline | Sustainability Dimension |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | [Ms. WORD REQ-01] Energy Saving | Energy Profiles/modes | Introduce energy profiles in Microsoft Office that allow the software to be run in an energy-saving mode. | Environmental |
2 | [Ms. WORD REQ-02] True Print | Printing | Show the user the actual print preview of documents based on toner conditions. | Environmental |
3 | [Ms. WORD REQ-03] Educate User | Notification | Let the users know how much ink they saved over time. | Social |
S. No | Proposed Sustainability Goal | Goal-Feature Mapping | Sustainability Guideline | Sustainability Dimension |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | [FOODPANDA REQ-01] Fuel Saving | Notification | During application usage, notify the user if someone else from the same vicinity has placed an order on the application. If the user opts for delivery from the same restaurant the delivery charges can be split in half. | Environmental |
2 | [FOODPANDA REQ-02] | Cart | Encourage restaurants to use the least amount of food packaging as possible. Allow users to opt for tiffin services instead of disposable packaging. | Environmental |
3 | [FOODPANDA REQ-03] Reduce use of plastic | Cart | Give users the choice of skipping delivery of disposable cutlery with their placed orders. | Environmental |
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Noman, H.; Mahoto, N.A.; Bhatti, S.; Abosaq, H.A.; Al Reshan, M.S.; Shaikh, A. An Exploratory Study of Software Sustainability at Early Stages of Software Development. Sustainability 2022, 14, 8596. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148596
Noman H, Mahoto NA, Bhatti S, Abosaq HA, Al Reshan MS, Shaikh A. An Exploratory Study of Software Sustainability at Early Stages of Software Development. Sustainability. 2022; 14(14):8596. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148596
Chicago/Turabian StyleNoman, Hira, Naeem Ahmed Mahoto, Sania Bhatti, Hamad Ali Abosaq, Mana Saleh Al Reshan, and Asadullah Shaikh. 2022. "An Exploratory Study of Software Sustainability at Early Stages of Software Development" Sustainability 14, no. 14: 8596. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148596