Empathy-guided software development: a conceptual framework of empathy in software engineering.

Abstract

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the emotions of others, a critical skill for software practitioners as it contributes to improved software quality, communication,collaboration, and work environments. Despite its importance, empathy remains an underexplored topic in Software Engineering (SE) research. Aims. To address this knowledge gap, this dissertation aims to deepen our under- standing of empathy in SE by investigating how it is defined, practiced, and experienced by software practitioners, as well as identifying barriers and effects related to empathetic behavior in development contexts. Method. We adopted a mixed-methods approach. First, we conducted a qualitative analysis of grey literature from practitioner platforms (DEV and Medium). Then, we surveyed software practitioners within a large software organization to quantitatively and qualitatively examine empathy-related perceptions and behaviors. We also evaluated our proposed framework with empathy experts. Results. The study revealed different meanings and a high perceived value of em- pathy, as well as barriers that hinder its application in software teams. We identified a set of empathetic practices and categorized them into empathy dimensions based on exploratory factor analysis. We also found that empathy practices are closely linked to positive outcomes, ranging from productivity and technical quality to collaboration, well-being, and professional growth, reinforcing the practical relevance of empathy across multiple dimensions of software practice. These insights informed the development of a conceptual framework of empathy in SE, which was validated through experts’ feedback. Conclusion. This research advances the understanding of empathy in software engineering by offering a theoretically and empirically grounded framework, an open empirical package, and practical implications for teams and organizations. It lays the foundation for future work on empathy-driven practices, tools, and interventions in software development.