SW-Context: A model to improve developers' situational awareness

Abstract

This study proposes SW-Context, a model focused on defining context information for software, and storing this information in contextual history. The proposed model provides qualitative information concerning source code and design issues to support the daily activities of software developers, thereby improving their situation awareness. SW-Context was evaluated through a case study in industry, in which 12 developers used it to support maintenance activities throughout one month. After this period, all developers filled out a qualitative questionnaire, which was formulated based on the well-established technology acceptance model. The obtained results suggest that 67% of developers completely agree with the usefulness and ease of use of the SW-Context. These results are encouraging and show the potential for implementing SW-Context in broader software maintenance scenarios.