GenderMag experiences in the field: The whole, the parts, and the workload
Charles Hill, Shannon Ernst, Alannah Oleson, Amber Horvath, Margaret Burnett · 2016
Recent research has reported numerous studies bringing into question the gender inclusiveness of many kinds of software. Inclusiveness of software (gender or otherwise) matters because supporting diversity matters - it is well-known that the more diverse a group of problem-solvers, the higher the quality of the solution. To help software creators identify features within their software that are not gender-inclusive, we recently created a method known as GenderMag. In this paper, we investigate the experience of teams of software professionals using GenderMag to find problems with software they are building. Our results show a high engagement with GenderMag personas - more than twice that of other personas research - and a very high degree of accuracy (93%) most of the time. Finally, our results pinpointed situations that we term “detours” that were especially prone to errors, with teams 6 times more likely to make errors in detours than they did otherwise.