Making Software Meaningful

2026-06-09

AI Summary

This work addresses the lack of a unified semantic foundation in current software systems, which creates comprehension gaps among development, usage, and governance due to deficiencies in usability, modularity, and accountability. To bridge this divide, the paper proposes grounding software semantics in domain behavioral phenomena—specifically individuals, actions, and facts—as a shared conceptual vocabulary for stakeholders. This approach systematically integrates phenomenon-based modeling into software development by organizing behaviors into conceptual units, leveraging large language models (LLMs) to map semantics to modular, readable code, and establishing agent accountability through behavior-oriented norms. Empirical evaluation demonstrates that the proposed method significantly enhances the quality of usability design, improves the modularity and readability of LLM-generated code, and strengthens the accountability of autonomous agent behaviors.

Abstract

Adopting a single measure can improve the usability, modularity and accountability of software: a commitment to explicit meaning. This entails constructing and agreeing upon a representation of the behavior of the software, as observed in the domain of application. The phenomena comprising this behavior become a vocabulary that grounds all discourse about the software, among all stakeholders, and for all artifacts and activities. These phenomena are individuals; actions they participate in; and facts that result from actions. They can be organized, by partitioning the set of actions, into concepts, offering larger units of meaning. Examples of exploiting meaning are given in three areas: designing for usability (by aligning user and designer on a single shared meaning); generating modular code with LLMs (by mapping units of meaning to units of code, achieving not only modularity but also legibility); and making agents accountable (by having them adhere to a code of conduct that defines their intended behavior).

Problem

• meaning
• usability
• modularity
• accountability
• software behavior

Innovation

• explicit meaning
• semantic grounding
• modular code generation
• software accountability
• domain behavior modeling