Intenticons: Participatory selection of emoticons for communication of intentions

Previous studies have emphasised that emoticons are able to express more than emotions, assuming a central role on computer mediation communication. Explicit consideration of intentions in computer systems might play a significant role for improving communication and collaboration. Nevertheless, web-mediated communication lacks elements that are natural in face-to-face conversation for signalling intention. In this article, we propose so-called Intenticons as a set of emoticons designed (and/or selected) to communicate intentions as an interactive mechanism to support users in expressing intentions. This study presents an experimental analysis to evaluate whether Intenticons designed in a participatory way convey intentions better than emoticons selected by designers in a non-participatory way. We rely on a theoretical framework based on Speech Act Theory and Semiotics to categorize different classes of intentions. The achieved results, based on statistical tests, revealed that the Intenticons were more adequate for most of the intention classes. Our findings demonstrated the value of the user involvement for obtaining adequate emoticons in intention sharing.