Bots for Pull Requests: The Good, the Bad, and the Promising

Mairieli Wessel, Ahmad Abdellatif, Igor Wiese, Tayana Conte, Emad Shihab, Marco A. Gerosa, Igor Steinmacher

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Software bots automate tasks within Open Source Software (OSS) projects' pull requests and save reviewing time and effort ('the good'). However, their interactions can be disruptive and noisy and lead to information overload ('the bad'). To identify strategies to overcome such problems, we applied Design Fiction as a participatory method with 32 practitioners. We elicited 22 design strategies for a bot mediator or the pull request user interface ('the promising'). Participants envisioned a separate place in the pull request interface for bot interactions and a bot mediator that can summarize and customize other bots' actions to mitigate noise. We also collected participants' perceptions about a prototype implementing the envisioned strategies. Our design strategies can guide the development of future bots and social coding platforms.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2022 ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2022
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages274-286
Number of pages13
ISBN (Electronic)9781450392211
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022
Event44th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2022 - Pittsburgh, United States
Duration: May 22 2022May 27 2022

Publication series

NameProceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering
Volume2022-May
ISSN (Print)0270-5257

Conference

Conference44th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2022
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPittsburgh
Period5/22/225/27/22

Keywords

  • Automation
  • Collaborative Development
  • Design Fiction
  • GitHub Bots
  • Human-bot Interaction
  • Open Source Software
  • Software Bots

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Bots for Pull Requests: The Good, the Bad, and the Promising'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this