Subtle interaction for a non intrusive communication

Abstract

Human communication is not completely supported by current technology. This is due to the richness and variety of our social interactions. Information and Communication Technologies have grown in recent decades to provide multiple communication services in the most varied devices. But most of them are highly intrusive, forcing us to focus our attention and having in many cases to temporarily leave the activity we were doing. This paper presents a proposal for implementing a non-intrusive communication based on the common context that conversational partners share. To achieve this we make use of the concept of Subtle Interaction, to implement Calm Technology and study how we can exploit the periphery of our attention to accomplish less intrusive ways of communication supported by current technology. Finally we present a proof of concept and a brief user study. © Springer International Publishing 2013.