Explicating "Implicit Interaction"

Abstract

The term implicit interaction is often used to denote interactions that differ from traditional purposeful and attention demanding ways of interacting with computers. However, there is a lack of agreement about the term's precise meaning. This paper develops implicit interaction further as an analytic concept and identifies the methodological challenges related to HCI's particular design orientation. We first review meanings of implicit as unintentional, attentional background, unawareness, unconsciousness and implicature, and compare them in regards to the entity they qualify, the design motivation they emphasize and their constructive validity for what makes good interaction. We then demonstrate how the methodological challenges can be addressed with greater precision by using an updated, intentionality-based definition that specifies an input-effect relationship as the entity of implicit. We conclude by identifying a number of new considerations for design and evaluation, and by reflecting on the concepts of user and system agency in HCI. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → HCI theory, concepts and models; User models.

Grand Challenges in Neurotechnology and System Neuroergonomics

“…Similarly, we lack a strong understanding of how classification rates derived from machine learning algorithms regarding the internal state of the user correspond with those subjective types of self-assessment that informs perceived accuracy of the system (Fairclough et al, 2015 ; McCrea et al, 2016 ). Due to the high speed of data exchange between brain and machine, interactions with neurotechnology can occur implicitly and autonomously, i.e., functions can be activated without seeking confirmation from the user (Solovey et al, 2015 ; Serim and Jacucci, 2019 ). While this is a potentially exciting development from a HCI perspective, we know relatively little about how users will respond to this type of interaction mechanic, will they welcome an opportunity to communicate unconsciously with a machine or experience the triggering of autonomous functions by real-time changes in neurophysiological activity as a loss of personal control?…”

Digital Behavior Change Intervention Designs for Habit Formation: Systematic Review

“…Ju and Leifer [75] argued that traditional HCI was limited to command-based and graphical interface-based explicit interactions, whereas implicit interactions, defined as "those that occur without the explicit behest or awareness of the user," are common in day-to-day interactions. Developing on this, Serim and Jacucci [76] described implicit interaction as "...a system response to the user input does not rely on the user having conducted the input to intentionally achieve it." With the development of ubiquitous computing, big data, and AI, implicit interactions increasingly influenced users to interact with the intelligent system because these emerging technologies have the ability to sense the environment that does not rely on intentional input from users.…”

“…With the development of ubiquitous computing, big data, and AI, implicit interactions increasingly influenced users to interact with the intelligent system because these emerging technologies have the ability to sense the environment that does not rely on intentional input from users. Hence, in this context, implicitness refers to unintentionally taking action, reducing attention during input or output, action without awareness, and executing results without conscious processing [76]. The implicit-explicit interaction dimension refers to whether the design of BCTs requires intentional goals, users' attention, awareness of input, and conscious processing.…”

Feeling the Temperature of the Room: Unobtrusive Thermal Display of Engagement during Group Communication

“…A shift in attention can be triggered by, among other things, evoking positive or negative emotions, but these also require personalization [7]. Thus, designing for implicit interaction means enabling secondary activities to run in the background of attention, often in parallel to explicit tasks [37,68]. Interactive wearables are also often considered unobtrusive [13,19,52,64,89] as long as they are adapted to the user's skin and temperature sensitivity and stay non-disruptive to movement [20], and prior work has explored novel affective wearable displays, such as chronometry [79].…”