Video-Based Empathy Training for Software Engineers

Empathy, i.e., the ability to understand and feel what others are going through, is essential for value-based and user-centered software development. Empathy helps software engineers fully understand client needs, but also impacts how software engineers work with each other (e.g., within their team). However, junior and less experienced software engineers may not always understand what empathy means and why it matters in a technical domain like software development (and therefore do not pursue opportunities to develop it). We present a video-based training technique for empathy of software engineers. We also show preliminary findings of using the technique in a software engineering project course for second-year software engineering students. We report on student learning, engagement, as well as the perceptions of students on the training technique.