How does HCI Understand Human Agency and Autonomy?

Title of the Paper

How does HCI Understand Human Agency and Autonomy?

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Research on "human autonomy" and "agency" in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
• Keywords: Autonomy, Agency, User Experience, Theory, Delegation, Self-Determination Theory, Boundary Objects, Mixed Agency

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges:

  • Autonomy and agency are critical concepts in the HCI field but lack clear definitions. These terms are often confused or used interchangeably.
  • Recent advancements in technology (e.g., artificial intelligence, smart systems) have further blurred the boundaries between humans and technology, complicating discussions around autonomy and agency.
  • HCI research has yet to systematically explore how these concepts support specific research and practice, and there is a lack of integration of their diversity.

• Significance:

  • These issues concern how technology impacts users' behaviors, values, and identities, directly affecting the quality of user experience and the ethical and societal implications of technology.

• Research Motivation:

  • There is an urgent need for a systematic review to clarify the fundamental meanings, open questions, and future directions of autonomy and agency in HCI research.
  • Explore how these concepts can serve as "boundary objects" to connect various subfields of HCI, promoting coordination in academic and practical research.

Solutions

• Research Methods:

  • Conduct a systematic literature review analyzing 161 studies related to autonomy and agency in HCI published over the past 32 years (1990–2022).

• Main Contributions:

  1. Diagnosing Issues: Clarify that autonomy and agency have not effectively functioned as "boundary objects" in HCI but are more often "ambiguous umbrella concepts" with diverse yet unclear meanings.
  2. Conceptual Framework: Propose four dimensions to distinguish and explore autonomy and agency: causality and identity, experience and materiality, behavioral timescales, independence and interdependence.
  3. Future Directions: Provide recommendations for defining and researching these concepts more clearly and fostering interconnected work across HCI subfields.

• Innovative Aspects:

  • Through a systematic review of historical literature, identify and structure key dimensions in current understanding to address longstanding ambiguities.
  • First attempt to apply "boundary object" theory to autonomy and agency to coordinate different HCI research communities.

• Implementation Steps and Key Techniques:

  • Collect and filter literature data.
  • Use coding to synthesize and extract relevant themes.
  • Organize a hierarchical understanding framework for autonomy and agency based on literature analysis.

Research Results

• Specific Findings:

  • Role of Autonomy and Agency in HCI:

    • Literature shows that "autonomy" and "agency" are core concepts of user experience, but their definitions are highly context-dependent.
    • Clarify how these concepts are reflected in multiple domains (e.g., game design, healthcare, aging technologies), though lacking a unified explanation.

  • Four Structured Dimensions:

    1. Causality and Identity: Agency can be divided into "causal agency at the operational level" and "self-construction involving identity and values."
    2. Experience and Materiality: Material control and subjective experience may not align, yet research often fails to distinguish between them.
    3. Behavioral Timescales: Short-term actions (e.g., micro-operations in interaction) and long-term impacts (e.g., integration of identity and values) show significant differences in understanding agency.
    4. Independence and Interdependence: The tension between independence and team reliance needs systematic exploration.

• Advantages Compared to Existing Solutions:

  • Provides a more systematic and comprehensive framework to help researchers analyze and apply the concepts of autonomy and agency.
  • Highlights cross-domain commonalities, supporting collaboration among different HCI research subcommunities.

• Experimental or Evaluation Results:

  • Literature review results show that most studies lack clear definitions of "autonomy" and "agency," with only one-third of the literature providing specific definitions.
  • The research reveals potential complementarities and opportunities for coordination in understanding autonomy and agency across different fields.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  1. Limitations:

     • Focuses on "autonomy" and "agency," without covering adjacent concepts such as "empowerment" or "efficacy."
     • Primarily emphasizes high-level analysis, without delving into fine-grained exploration of individual domains.

  2. Future Directions:

     • Conduct specialized reviews within specific HCI subfields to promote more refined standardized definitions.
     • Strengthen the role of autonomy and agency in the ethical design of technology.
     • Design longitudinal studies centered on long-term timescales and cross-domain research to establish more robust causal links.
     • Test the multidimensional framework through "behavior change technologies" to further understand the long-term impacts of technology.