Exploring Explainability
A Definition, a Model, and a Knowledge Catalogue
- authored by
- Larissa Chazette, Wasja Brunotte, Timo Speith
- Abstract
The growing complexity of software systems and the influence of software-supported decisions in our society awoke the need for software that is transparent, accountable, and trust-worthy. Explainability has been identified as a means to achieve these qualities. It is recognized as an emerging non-functional requirement (NFR) that has a significant impact on system quality. However, in order to incorporate this NFR into systems, we need to understand what explainability means from a software engineering perspective and how it impacts other quality aspects in a system. This allows for an early analysis of the benefits and possible design issues that arise from interrelationships between different quality aspects. Nevertheless, explainability is currently under-researched in the domain of requirements engineering and there is a lack of conceptual models and knowledge catalogues that support the requirements engineering process and system design. In this work, we bridge this gap by proposing a definition, a model, and a catalogue for explainability. They illustrate how explainability interacts with other quality aspects and how it may impact various quality dimensions of a system. To this end, we conducted an interdisciplinary Systematic Literature Review and validated our findings with experts in workshops.
- Organisation(s)
-
PhoenixD: Photonics, Optics, and Engineering - Innovation Across Disciplines
Software Engineering Section
- External Organisation(s)
-
Saarland University
- Type
- Conference contribution
- Pages
- 197-208
- No. of pages
- 12
- Publication date
- 2021
- Publication status
- Published
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Computer Science, General Engineering, Strategy and Management
- Electronic version(s)
-
https://doi.org/10.1109/RE51729.2021.00025 (Access:
Closed)