Toward Gender-Inclusive Software: A Tale of 5 Facets

Google Tech Talk May 11, 2015 (click "show more" for more info) Presented by Professor Margaret Burnett ABSTRACT Gender inclusiveness in Silicon Valley is receiving a lot of attention these days, but it overlooks a potentially critical factor—software itself. Research into how individual differences cluster by gender shows that males and females tend to work differently with software that aims to help people solve problems (e.g., tools for debugging, for end-user programming, for game-based learning, and for visualizing information). However, many features of problem-solving software are (inadvertently) designed around the way males problem-solve. In this talk, I’ll explain 5 facets of these gender differences and how they tie to a large body of foundational work on gender differences from computer science, psychology, education, communications, and women’s studies. I’ll then present emerging work on our "GenderMag method”, an inspection method that encapsulates these 5 facets into practitioner-ready form. Early empirical results suggest that GenderMag is effective at enabling practitioners to pinpoint gender inclusiveness issues in software features. My visit to Google is to reach out to any Googlers who might be interested in trying GenderMag, so as to identify gender inclusiveness issues with their own software projects. About the speaker: Margaret Burnett is currently a professor of Computer Science in the School of EECS at Oregon State University. Margaret Burnett's research on gender inclusiveness in software — especially in tools for programming by end users — spans over 10 years. Burnett and her team systematically debunked misconceptions of gender inclusiveness in a variety of software platforms, and then devised software features that help avert the identified problems. She has reported these results in over 30 publications, and has presented keynotes and invited talks on this topic in 7 countries. She serves on a variety of HCI and Software Engineering committees and editorial boards, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Academic branch of National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT).