Information needs in bug reports: improving cooperation between developers and users

For many software projects, bug tracking systems play a central role in supporting collaboration between the developers and the users of the software. To better understand this collaboration and how tool support can be improved, we have quantitatively and qualitatively analysed the questions asked in a sample of 600 bug reports from the MOZILLA and ECLIPSE projects. We categorised the questions and analysed response rates and times by category and project. Our results show that the role of users goes beyond simply reporting bugs: their active and ongoing participation is important for making progress on the bugs they report. Based on the results, we suggest four ways in which bug tracking systems can be improved.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: CSCW
• Authors: Silvia Breu, Rahul Premraj, Jonathan Sillito, Thomas Zimmermann
• Keywords: Bug Reports, Bug Tracking Systems, Central Role, CSCW 2010, Social Sciences