Towards Recognizing the Emotions of Developers Using Biometrics: The Design of a Field Study

During their daily working activities, developers experience a wide range of emotions that are known to impact their personal wellbeing and, consequently, their work performance. As such, being aware of own and collaborators' emotions is crucial to enhance the collaborative development process. In this paper we present the design of a field study aimed at i) assessing the feasibility of emotion detection using non-invasive biometric sensors and ii) investigating the correlation between daily working activities and positive/negative emotions experienced by software developers. The long-term goal of our research is to provide recommendations to improve developers' mental well-being and productivity based on the emotions they experience.