Understanding the Impact of Emotions on the Quality of Software Artifacts

Abstract

This paper proposes a framework for investigating the impact of emotions on the quality of software artifacts and portrays some observations captured during the development of several software engineering projects. The paper uses eight primary emotions and their intensity levels defined in Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions. This study utilizes two major artifacts in the development environment; the software artifacts and the communication artifacts. The findings show that most developers experienced optimism in their work, felt joy, and found interest in the project. It also reveals that the most three influencing negative emotions are distraction, anger and boredom. Almost 20% of the developers were distracted during the project activities. Some developers also experienced anger with other team members. Nearly one-fifth of the participants were bored or lost interest in the project. These results confirm the findings of other similar research. However, we have also found that this claim does not always hold in some cases. Positive emotions do not always contribute to good quality artifacts. Similarly, negative emotions sometimes result in a positive impact on the quality of artifacts. The obtained results show how various kinds of emotions impact differently on the quality of software artifacts.