Comparing Foraging Behavior Across Code Hosting and Q&A Platforms Through a Gender Lens

This study compares the information foraging behavior of developers on two prominent platforms, StackOverflow and GitHub, which are widely used for code hosting and question and answer purposes. Understanding how developers seek and retrieve information is crucial for designing effective interfaces. In a gender and expertise-balanced study involving 12 developers, we utilized Information Foraging Theory to analyze their foraging behavior. Our findings revealed contrasting patterns, with women spending 30% more time and utilizing 21.24% more cues on GitHub, while men utilized 55% more time and 19.7% more cues on StackOverflow. These insights have significant implications for optimizing website design and information presentation to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of developers' information seeking processes.