SIGHInt: Special Interest Group for Human-Computer
Integration
Nathan Semertzidis

Exertion Games Lab, Monash
University
Clayton, Australia
nathan@exertiongameslab.org

Xinyi Wang

Exertion Games Lab, Monash
University
Clayton, Australia
nicole@exertiongameslab.org

Michaela Scary

Xiao Fang

Exertion Games Lab, Monash
University
Clayton, Australia
scary@exertiongameslab.org

Exertion Games Lab, Monash
University
Clayton, Australia
zoe@exertiongameslab.org

Rakesh Patibanda

Josh Andres

Exertion Games Lab, Monash
University
Clayton, Australia
rakesh@exertiongameslab.org

Paul Strohmeier

Kai Kunze

Saarland University
Germany

Keio UniversityJapan

Fabio Zambetta

IBM Research
Clayton, Australia
josh@exertiongameslab.org

Pedro Lopes

University of Chicago
United States

Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller

RMIT University
Melbourne, Australia
fabio.zambetta@rmit.edu.au

Exertion Games Lab, Monash
University
Clayton, Australia
foyd@exertiongameslab.org

ABSTRACTCCS CONCEPTS

Human-Computer Integration (HInt) is a growing paradigm within
HCI which seeks to understand how humans can, and already are,merging with computational machines. HInt’s recent inception andevolution has seen much discussion in a variety of symposiums,
workshops, and publications for HCI. This has enabled a democratized and decentralised emergence of its core concepts. While thishas allowed for rapid growth in our understanding of HInt, there issome discrepancy in how the proponents of this movement might
describe its principles, motivations, defnitions, and ultimate goals,
with many ofshoot concepts of HInt beginning to emerge. SIGHint aims to provide a platform to facilitate high level discussion
and collation of information between researchers and designers
seeking to learn from and contribute to the development of HumanComputer Integration. It is our intention that through this SIG wemay better understand how new and emerging, diverging ideas,
and perspectives within Human-Computer Integration relate toeach other, ultimately facilitating a mapping of the paradigm and asynthesis of its concepts.

• Human-centered Computing; • Human-computer interaction (HCI); • Interaction paradigms;

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal orclassroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributedfor proft or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citationon the frst page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored.
For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s).
CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan© 2021 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-8095-9/21/05.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3450400

KEYWORDS
human-computer integration, cybernetics, wearables, augmentation, intelligent agents, ubiquitous computing
ACM Reference Format:
Nathan Semertzidis, Michaela Scary, Xiao Fang, Xinyi Wang, Rakesh Patibanda, Josh Andres, Paul Strohmeier, Kai Kunze, Pedro Lopes, Fabio Zambetta, and Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller. 2021. SIGHInt: Special Interest Groupfor Human-Computer Integration. In CHI Conference on Human Factors
in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts (CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts),
May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3 pages.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3450400

1

BACKGROUND

Gruden and Farooq introducted the HCI community to the conceptof “Human-Computer Integration” (HInt) with their 2016[4] and2017[6] papers. Framed as a new paradigm for HCI, HInt purports
a conceptual continuum extending the current “stimulus-response”
paradigm of interaction toward a “symbiotic partnership” between
humans and computers [4], in which both parties are integrated andmust be considered holistically. In the following year, a panel titled‘Integration versus Powerful Tools’, opened the concept up for debate amongst the wider HCI audience at the 2017 ACM Conferenceon Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) [5]. Through thisdebate, panelist Shneiderman argued for increasing automation

CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japanwith more human control; while panelists Maes and Ren argued
the necessity and inevitability of agential synergy between humans
and computers, both functionally and existentially. This ultimately
lead to the organisation of a 2018 Dagstuhl symposium, in which
29 leading experts from industry and academia came together overa fve-day workshop to develop and discuss the future of HInt [10].
With signifcant progress made in the development of the theory
in the wake of the workshop, an overarching work titled “NextSteps in Human-Computer Integration” was drafted in 2019 andpresented at 2020 CHI [9]. The work, articulating a synthesis ofcontributions made toward Human-Computer Integration, summarised the current state of the burgeoning paradigm, illustrated in
Figure 1. The paper defned HInt as “a new paradigm with the key
property that computers become closely integrated with the user”,
and further broke this into two sub-types of integration. These
were symbiosis, referring to “systems in which humans and digitaltechnology work together, either towards a shared goal or towards
complementary goals” ; and fusion, as “integration in which devices
extend the experienced human body or in which the human bodyextends devices”.

Semertzidis, et al.

positive thing, we argue the necessity for a reconvening of the HInt
research community to tend to this sprouting theoretical rhizome
as new ideas begin to overlap. For example, the sub-type of integration concerned with technology integrating with the human bodyhas been articulated in three separate publications as: “fusion”, “embodied integration; and “bodily integration”. With this considered,we present this special interest group, “SIGHInt”, to facilitate thepruning and maintenance necessary for the healthy growth of thisparadigm.

2SIGHInt aims to:• Facilitate discussion about what HInt means to researchers
coming from diferent backgrounds with diverse viewpoints• Debate what topics are core and peripheral to HInt
• Collaboratively come to a consensus about what HInt means
and the range of topics it covers• Create a map of the areas of HInt, which demonstrates theunderlying structure of how these topics relate to each other
This process will involve an open discussion with attendees. During the session, we will ask attendees to share their own diverse
backgrounds, experiences, and opinions to get a broad picture ofwhat HInt means to the community. All suggestions will be added
to the map progressively throughout the session. In the latter partof the SIG, we will collectively re-organise, prune back, and remove
any redundancies to produce our main deliverable: a communityproduced map of HInt. Figure 2 shows an example of the map weintend to produce through this SIG, illustrating loosely structured
emerging concepts in human-computer integration to provoke discussion and continue co-shaping this exciting space in this special
interest group.

3Figure 1: Previous consensus of the map of HumanComputer Integration. Figure from “Next Steps in HumanComputer Integration,” by F. Mueller, et al., 2020, Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1-15.
Since the writing of “Next steps in Human-Computer Integration”, many new researchers have joined the rolling snowball whichis HInt. Many new contributions have been made to HInt, growing the feld in a multiplicity of exciting, yet diverting directions,much like a sprouting rhizome. With this growth left unattended
by the gestalt of the HInt research collective for two years, we fnd
that the original symbiosis-fusion defnition has evolved into atleast eight diferent conceptualizations of integration, with fve of
these set to be published in the coming year alone. This includes:
embodied integration, bodily integration, experiential integration,intertwined integration, integrated exertion, and integrated consciousness; in addition to the original identifcation of fusion andsymbiosis. While this growth and diversifcation can be seen as aAIMS AND GOALSATTENDEES

This SIG is being organised in concurrence with a panel and workshop also focusing on human-computer integration. However, theworkshop will be focusing on a sub-type of HInt called ‘experiential
integration’, while this SIG aims to give a generalised overview ofHInt while seeking to incorporate new contributions to the theory canon. This makes it appropriate for both experienced HInt
researchers who wish to develop the feld further, and new-comers
looking to get a taste for the feld. We anticipate this will make theSIG a more accessible venue for becoming acquainted with HInt tothe general CHI audience, particularly given the shorter time spanof this SIG in comparison to the workshop, its availability of this
SIG to all CHI registered individuals, in comparison to the workshop which requires attendees to submit work. We also diferentiate
this from the HInt panel, which will also explore broader aspects ofHInt, but will not allow the more democratized collaboration of allattendees we expect with this SIG. We hope this SIG provides perspectives beyond the feld’s leading experts in the panel, to include
those of the broader community.

4SIG FORMAT

Attendees will be given a link to a video conference platform on
which to attend the SIG. Upon commencement online, the format
will be as follows:SIGHInt: Special Interest Group for Human-Computer Integration

CHI ’21 Extended Abstracts, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan

Following the conclusion of the SIG, organizers will provide aslack group for attendees to facilitate networking opportunities,
continue any discussions, and raise further issues or ideas so thatorganizers can make any fnal changes to the map.
Moving forward, there will be opportunity for interested attendees to work together with the organizers to produce a journal
paper using the content discussed and created, as well as organize
future CHI workshops and panels.

REFERENCES

Figure 2: An example of what our map of human-computer
integration might look like at the end of the SIG, with some
sub-felds as well as example systems: (a) Ena the E-bike[2], (b) Tongue and Ear interface [11], (c) Eva the E-bike [1],(d) Pacemakers & insulin pumps, (e) Sub-dermal implants(RFID, LEDs), (f) Virtual assistants, (g) MetaArms [12], (h)Humanistic intelligence [8], (i) IoT [3], (j) Muscle-Plotter [7],(k) Neo-Noumena [13]. Please note this is just an example of
how we imagine the map might be distributed and we do notintend this to be an authoritative source on the relationships
between HInt concepts and associated systems.

1. Introduction (10 minutes): Organizers will briefy introduce
themselves and present a short background of HInt and explain theSIG objectives.
2. Discussion and map drafting (35-40 minutes): Organizers will
invite attendees to add to this map. Depending on the platform used,attendees will be able to edit the map themselves, or an organiser
will add to the map as suggestions are voiced.
3. Map re-organisation and pruning (15-20 minutes): After a mapof HInt is produced, attendees will attempt to organise the map
where needed by moving topics around the map, collapsing related
topics, removing any redundancies, and so on.
4. Final map adjustments and conclusion (10 minutes): Any further adjustments to the map can be made as the conclusion to thisSIG is carried out. Organizers will provide access to a slack groupfor further discussion.

5OUTCOMES AND NEXT STEPSThe major outcome of this SIG will be a map of HInt developed
collaboratively by the attendees, representing diverse perspectives.
We hope that this will clarify the diverse topics of HInt, which will
beneft not only researchers from the feld but also those outside
the feld hoping to understand it. We also hope the map will be used
as a reference tool for researchers to fnd relevant collaborationsin their topics of interest. The fnal version of this map will beavailable online.

[1] Josh Andres, Julian de Hoog, and Florian Mueller. 2018. " I had super-powers
when eBike riding" Towards Understanding the Design of Integrated Exertion.
In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction inPlay. 19–31.
[2] Josh Andres, mc schraefel, Nathan Semertzidis, Brahmi Dwivedi, Yutika C Kulwe,
Juerg von Kaenel, and Florian Mueller. 2020. Introducing Peripheral Awarenessas a Neurological State for Human-computer Integration. In Proceedings of the2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–13.
[3] Luigi Atzori, Antonio Iera, and Giacomo Morabito. 2010. The internet of things:A survey. Computer networks 54, 15 (2010), 2787–2805.
[4] Umer Farooq and Jonathan Grudin. 2016. Human-computer integration. interactions 23, 6 (2016), 26–32.
[5] Umer Farooq, Jonathan Grudin, Ben Shneiderman, Pattie Maes, and Xiangshi
Ren. 2017. Human computer integration versus powerful tools. In Proceedingsof the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing
Systems. 1277–1282.
[6] Umer Farooq and Jonathan T Grudin. 2017. Paradigm shift from human computerinteraction to integration. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference ExtendedAbstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1360–1363.
[7] Pedro Lopes, Doăa Yüksel, François Guimbretière, and Patrick Baudisch. 2016.
Muscle-plotter: An interactive system based on electrical muscle stimulation that
produces spatial output. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User
Interface Software and Technology. 207–217.
[8] Steve Mann. 2001. Wearable computing: Toward humanistic intelligence. IEEEIntelligent Systems 16, 3 (2001), 10–15.
[9] Florian Mueller, Pedro Lopes, Paul Strohmeier, Wendy Ju, Caitlyn Seim, MartinWeigel, Suranga Nanayakkara, Marianna Obrist, Zhuying Li, Joseph Delfa, et al.
2020. Next Steps for Human-Computer Integration. In Proceedings of the 2020
CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–15.
[10] Florian Mueller, Pattie Maes, and Jonathan Grudin. 2019. Human-Computer
Integration. (2019).
[11] Himanshu Sahni, Abdelkareem Bedri, Gabriel Reyes, Pavleen Thukral, Zehua
Guo, Thad Starner, and Maysam Ghovanloo. 2014. The tongue and ear interface:a wearable system for silent speech recognition. In Proceedings of the 2014 ACM
International Symposium on Wearable Computers. 47–54.
[12] MHD Yamen Saraiji, Tomoya Sasaki, Kai Kunze, Kouta Minamizawa, andMasahiko Inami. 2018. Metaarms: Body remapping using feet-controlled artifcial arms. In Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface
Software and Technology. 65–74.
[13] Nathan Semertzidis, Michaela Scary, Josh Andres, Brahmi Dwivedi, Yutika Chandrashekhar Kulwe, Fabio Zambetta, and Florian Floyd Mueller. 2020. NeoNoumena: Augmenting Emotion Communication. In Proceedings of the 2020
CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–13.