Gender Inclusivity as a Quality Requirement: Practices and Pitfalls

Abstract

Gender inclusivity in software is gaining attention from researchers and practitioners, with some seeing it as a nonfunctional requirement. To investigate how gender inclusivity can be incorporated into creating software, we gathered data during periods ranging from 5 months to 3.5 years from 10 software teams that used the Gender Inclusiveness Magnifier (GenderMag) to achieve the gender inclusivity quality attribute. GenderMag is a method for detecting and fixing gender inclusivity issues in software. In this article, we summarize several practices the teams devised and pitfalls they encountered.