BACKGROUND: Software engineering is a human activity. People naturally make sense of their activities and experience through storytelling. But storytelling does not appear to have been properly studied by software engineering research. AIM: We explore the question: what contribution can storytelling make to human--centric software engineering research? METHOD: We define concepts, identify types of story and their purposes, outcomes and effects, briefly review prior literature, identify several contributions and propose next steps. RESULTS: Storytelling can, amongst other contributions, contribute to data collection, data analyses, ways of knowing, research outputs, interventions in practice, and advocacy, and can integrate with evidence and arguments. Like all methods, storytelling brings risks. These risks can be managed. CONCLUSION: Storytelling provides a potential counter--balance to abstraction, and an approach to retain and honour human meaning in software engineering.
翻译:背景:软件工程是一种人类活动。人们自然会通过讲故事来理解他们的活动和经验。但是讲故事似乎没有经过软件工程研究的适当研究。AIM:我们探讨一个问题:讲故事能给以人为中心的软件工程研究做出什么贡献?方法:我们定义概念,确定故事类型及其目的、结果和影响,简要回顾以前的文献,确定若干贡献并提议下一步的步骤。成果:讲故事可以促进数据收集、数据分析、了解的方式、研究产出、实际干预和宣传,并且可以与证据和论点相结合。同所有方法一样,讲故事会带来风险。这些风险是可以管理的。CONCLUSion:讲故事为抽象提供了可能的平衡,并提供了一种在软件工程中保留并尊重人的意义的方法。