  Architectural Technical Debt (ATD) is considered as the most significant type
of TD in industrial practice. In this study, we interview 21 software engineers
and architects to investigate a specific type of ATD, namely architectural
smells (AS). Our goal is to understand the phenomenon of AS better and support
practitioners to better manage it and researchers to offer relevant support.
The findings of this study provide insights on how practitioners perceive AS
and how they introduce them, the maintenance and evolution issues they
experienced and associated to the presence of AS, and what practices and tools
they adopt to manage AS.
