  Background: A growing amount of software is available to children today.
Children use both software that has been explicitly developed for them and
software for general users. While they obtain clear benefits from software,
such as access to creativity tools and learning resources, children are also
exposed to several risks and disadvantages, such as privacy violation,
inactivity, or safety risks that can even lead to death. The research and
development community is addressing and investigating positive and negative
impacts of software for children one by one, but no comprehensive model exists
that relates software engineering and children as stakeholders in their own
right. Aims: The final objective of this line of research is to propose
effective ways in which children can be involved in Software Engineering
activities as stakeholders. Specifically, in this paper, we investigate the
quality aspects that are of interest for children, as quality is a crucial
aspect in the development of any kind of software, especially for stakeholders
like children. Method: Our contribution is based mainly on an analysis of
studies at the intersection between Software Engineering (especially software
quality) and Child Computer Interaction. Results: We identify a set of
qualities and a preliminary set of guidelines that can be used by researchers
and practitioners in understanding the complex interrelations between Software
Engineering and children. Based on the qualities and the guidelines,
researchers can design empirical investigations to obtain deeper insights into
the phenomenon and propose new Software Engineering knowledge specific for this
type of stakeholders. Conclusions: This conceptualization is a first step
towards a framework to support children as stakeholders in software
engineering.
