An Experimental Study of Human Factors in Software Reliability Based on a Quality Engineering Approach

Abstract

In this chapter, we focus on a software design-review process which is more effective than other processes for the elimination and prevention of software faults in software development. Then, we adopt a quality engineering approach to analyze the relationships among the quality of the design-review activities, i.e., software reliability, and human factors to clarify the fault-introduction process in the design-review process. We conduct a design-review experiment with graduate and undergraduate students as subjects. First, we discuss human factors categorized as predispositions and inducers in the design-review process, and set up controllable human factors in the design-review experiment. In particular, we lay out the human factors on an orthogonal array based on the method of design of experiments. Second, in order to select human factors that affect the quality of the design review, we perform a software design-review experiment reflecting an actual design process based on the method of design of experiments. To analyze the experimental results, we adopt a quality engineering approach, i.e., the Taguchi method. That is, applying the orthogonal array L18(21 × 37) to the human-factor experiment, we carry out an analysis of variance by using the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which can evaluate the stability of the quality characteristics, discuss effective human factors, and obtain the optimal levels for the selected predispositions and inducers. Further, classifying the faults detected by design-review work into descriptive-design and symbolic-design faults, we discuss the relationships among them in more detail.