Towards debiasing code review support

Tobias Jetzen; Xavier Devroey; Nicolas Matton; Benoit Vanderose

doi:10.1109/chase66643.2025.00025

Towards debiasing code review support

Research output: Contribution in Book/Catalog/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

8 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Background: Current state-of-the-art established that cognitive biases appear during code review. They significantly impact the creation of feedback and how developers interpret it. These biases can lead to illogical reasoning and decision-making, violating one of the main hypotheses supporting code review: developers’ accurate and objective code evaluation. Objective: This paper explores harmful cases caused by cognitive biases during code review and potential solutions to avoid such cases or mitigate their effects. Method: We design several prototypes covering confirmation bias and decision fatigue. We rely on a developer-centered design approach by conducting usability tests and validating the prototype with a user experience questionnaire (UEQ) and participants’ feedback. Results: Our interim findings show that some techniques could be implemented in existing code review tools as reviewers will accept them and help prevent behavior detrimental to code review. Conclusion: This work provides a first approach to treating cognitive bias in code review. The developed prototypes will evolve into fully functional tools, with an extensive evaluation with developers.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025
Place of Publication	Otttawa, ON, Canada
Publisher	IEEE
Pages	143-148
Number of pages	6
ISBN (Electronic)	9798331538712
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/chase66643.2025.00025
Publication status	Published - 12 Jun 2025
Event	2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) - Ottawa, Canada Duration: 27 Apr 2025 → 28 Apr 2025 Conference number: 18 https://conf.researchr.org/home/chase-2025

Publication series

Name	Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025

Conference

Conference	2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE)
Abbreviated title	CHASE '25
Country/Territory	Canada
City	Ottawa
Period	27/04/25 → 28/04/25
Internet address	https://conf.researchr.org/home/chase-2025

Funding

This research was funded by the CyberExcellence by DigitalWallonia project (No. 2110186), funded by the Public Service of Wallonia (SPW Recherche).

Funders
SPW Service public de Wallonie

Keywords

code review
cognitive bias
user-centered design

Access to Document

10.1109/chase66643.2025.00025

CHASE25-author-version
978-1-5386-5541-2/18/$31.00 ©2025 IEEE. This is the authors’ version. The final version us published in 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE).
Accepted author manuscript, 211 KB

Cite this

Jetzen, T., Devroey, X., Matton, N., & Vanderose, B. (2025). Towards debiasing code review support. In Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025 (pp. 143-148). (Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/chase66643.2025.00025

Jetzen, Tobias ; Devroey, Xavier ; Matton, Nicolas et al. / Towards debiasing code review support. Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025. Otttawa, ON, Canada : IEEE, 2025. pp. 143-148 (Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025).

@inproceedings{f52385f73cb44d7594301cbf1c597e44,

title = "Towards debiasing code review support",

abstract = "Background: Current state-of-the-art established that cognitive biases appear during code review. They significantly impact the creation of feedback and how developers interpret it. These biases can lead to illogical reasoning and decision-making, violating one of the main hypotheses supporting code review: developers{\textquoteright} accurate and objective code evaluation. Objective: This paper explores harmful cases caused by cognitive biases during code review and potential solutions to avoid such cases or mitigate their effects. Method: We design several prototypes covering confirmation bias and decision fatigue. We rely on a developer-centered design approach by conducting usability tests and validating the prototype with a user experience questionnaire (UEQ) and participants{\textquoteright} feedback. Results: Our interim findings show that some techniques could be implemented in existing code review tools as reviewers will accept them and help prevent behavior detrimental to code review. Conclusion: This work provides a first approach to treating cognitive bias in code review. The developed prototypes will evolve into fully functional tools, with an extensive evaluation with developers.",

keywords = "code review, cognitive bias, user-centered design",

author = "Tobias Jetzen and Xavier Devroey and Nicolas Matton and Benoit Vanderose",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2025 IEEE.; 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE), CHASE '25 ; Conference date: 27-04-2025 Through 28-04-2025",

year = "2025",

month = jun,

day = "12",

doi = "10.1109/chase66643.2025.00025",

language = "English",

series = "Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025",

publisher = "IEEE",

pages = "143--148",

booktitle = "Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025",

url = "https://conf.researchr.org/home/chase-2025",

}

Jetzen, T, Devroey, X , Matton, N & Vanderose, B 2025, Towards debiasing code review support. in Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025. Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025, IEEE, Otttawa, ON, Canada, pp. 143-148, 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE), Ottawa, Quebec, Canada, 27/04/25. https://doi.org/10.1109/chase66643.2025.00025

Towards debiasing code review support. / Jetzen, Tobias; Devroey, Xavier ; Matton, Nicolas et al.
Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025. Otttawa, ON, Canada: IEEE, 2025. p. 143-148 (Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025).

Research output: Contribution in Book/Catalog/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

TY - GEN

T1 - Towards debiasing code review support

AU - Jetzen, Tobias

AU - Devroey, Xavier

AU - Matton, Nicolas

AU - Vanderose, Benoit

N1 - Conference code: 18

PY - 2025/6/12

Y1 - 2025/6/12

N2 - Background: Current state-of-the-art established that cognitive biases appear during code review. They significantly impact the creation of feedback and how developers interpret it. These biases can lead to illogical reasoning and decision-making, violating one of the main hypotheses supporting code review: developers’ accurate and objective code evaluation. Objective: This paper explores harmful cases caused by cognitive biases during code review and potential solutions to avoid such cases or mitigate their effects. Method: We design several prototypes covering confirmation bias and decision fatigue. We rely on a developer-centered design approach by conducting usability tests and validating the prototype with a user experience questionnaire (UEQ) and participants’ feedback. Results: Our interim findings show that some techniques could be implemented in existing code review tools as reviewers will accept them and help prevent behavior detrimental to code review. Conclusion: This work provides a first approach to treating cognitive bias in code review. The developed prototypes will evolve into fully functional tools, with an extensive evaluation with developers.

AB - Background: Current state-of-the-art established that cognitive biases appear during code review. They significantly impact the creation of feedback and how developers interpret it. These biases can lead to illogical reasoning and decision-making, violating one of the main hypotheses supporting code review: developers’ accurate and objective code evaluation. Objective: This paper explores harmful cases caused by cognitive biases during code review and potential solutions to avoid such cases or mitigate their effects. Method: We design several prototypes covering confirmation bias and decision fatigue. We rely on a developer-centered design approach by conducting usability tests and validating the prototype with a user experience questionnaire (UEQ) and participants’ feedback. Results: Our interim findings show that some techniques could be implemented in existing code review tools as reviewers will accept them and help prevent behavior detrimental to code review. Conclusion: This work provides a first approach to treating cognitive bias in code review. The developed prototypes will evolve into fully functional tools, with an extensive evaluation with developers.

KW - code review

KW - cognitive bias

KW - user-centered design

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105009091836

U2 - 10.1109/chase66643.2025.00025

DO - 10.1109/chase66643.2025.00025

M3 - Conference contribution

T3 - Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025

SP - 143

EP - 148

BT - Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025

PB - IEEE

CY - Otttawa, ON, Canada

T2 - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE)

Y2 - 27 April 2025 through 28 April 2025

ER -

Jetzen T, Devroey X , Matton N , Vanderose B. Towards debiasing code review support. In Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025. Otttawa, ON, Canada: IEEE. 2025. p. 143-148. (Proceedings - 2025 IEEE/ACM 18th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2025). doi: 10.1109/chase66643.2025.00025

Towards debiasing code review support

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint