Do End -Users Want Explanations? Analyzing the Role of Explainability as an Emerging Aspect of Non-Functional Requirements

Software systems are getting more and more complex. Their ubiquitous presence makes users more dependent on them and their correctness in many aspects of daily life. Thus, there is a rising need to make software systems and their decisions more comprehensible. This seems to call for more transparency in software-supported decisions. Therefore, transparency is gaining importance as a non-functional requirement. However, the abstract quality aspect of transparency needs to be better understood and related to mechanisms that can foster it. Integrating explanations in software to leverage systems' opacity has been discussed often. Yet, an important first step is to understand user requirements with respect to explainable software behavior: Are users really interested in transparency, and are explanations considered an adequate mechanism to achieve it? We conducted a survey with 107 end-users to assess their opinion on the current status of transparency in software systems, and what they consider main advantages and disadvantages of explanations embedded in software. The overall attitude towards embedded explanations was positive. However, we also identified potential disadvantages. We assess the relation between explanations and transparency and analyze its possible impact on software quality.