Software applications play an increasingly critical role in various aspects of our lives, from communication and entertainment to business and healthcare. As these applications become more pervasive, the importance of considering human values in software development has gained significant attention. In this preliminary study, we investigate developers’ perceptions and experiences related to human values, with a focus on the human value of transparency. We interviewed five experienced developers and conducted thematic analysis to explore how developers perceive transparency, violations of transparency, and the process of fixing reported violations of transparency. Our findings reveal the significance of transparency as a fundamental value in software development, with developers recognising its importance for building trust, promoting accountability, and fostering ethical practices. Developers recognise the negative consequences of the violation of the human value of transparency and follow a systematic process to fix reported violations. This includes investigation, root cause analysis, corrective action planning, collaborative problem-solving, and testing and verification. These preliminary findings contribute to the understanding of transparency in software development and provide insights for promoting ethical practices

Humphrey Obie

Monash University

Australia

Juliet Ukwella

Durham College of Applied Arts & Technology

Kashumi Madampe

Monash University, Australia

Australia

John Grundy

Monash University

Australia

Mojtaba Shahin

RMIT University, Australia

Australia

Using digital devices and online products and services requires users to regularly authenticate themselves. Given that the vast majority of websites use passwords to authenticate users, this study focuses on the accessibility and inclusivity of this mechanism, using Universal Design Principles as a lens. Collecting and analysing autobiographical narrative data from 50 respondents, we use a qualitative approach to explore the views and experiences of senior citizens across various phases of website authentication. Our analysis uncovers barriers and challenges, leading to several undesirable consequences, when authentication is not accessible and inclusive. Our findings also show how users, many of whom have cognitive and other age-related infirmities which are seldom accommodated in authentication design, try to cope with these issues. We conclude by summarising how authentication may fail to align with the principles of universal design, arguing that this needs to be addressed to enhance authentication accessibility and inclusivity for all users.

Jacques Ophoff

Abertay University

Karen Renaud

University of Strathclyde

Analysts in cybersecurity are responsible for monitoring and responding to security incidents in computer systems. They constantly need to acquire sophisticated skills to detect and mitigate sophisticated attacks such as multi-stage and multi-step network attacks (MSNA) that can long hours, days and even months. Unfortunately, there is a lack of MSNA datasets where cybersecurity analyst can train themselves about this matter. Moreover, their inherent complexity makes very difficult to cybersecurity analysts to detect them just reading logs. This work presents a human-centric approach to create MSNAs scenarios for training cybersecurity analysts on detecting concurrent MSNAs. To do this, we have designed NetWars to simulate a training scenario for cybersecurity analyst based on the attacks perpetrated for highly skilled teams during capture The flag events. During the training, cybersecurity analysts receive multiple concurrent MSNAs from 19 different attackers, where the trainee must decide which attack to prioritize for mitigation given that she has limited resources. We hypothesize that using a human-centric cybersecurity approach for cybersecurity analysts learn about detecting and evaluating MSNAs priorities would be better than using traditional approach based on the outputs of Intrusion detection systems. Results are encouraging. the tool’s adoption also yielded a remarkable 95% success rate in generating accurate answers. The usability of the NetWars prototype was highlighted by the users.

Vincent Depassier

Andrés Bello National University

Romina Torres

Adolfo Ibáñez University