Can Data Decode Human Intent?
Data can be used to expose an affinity to a brand, gender or a category, it can also tell us about the device and its location, but what can data really tell about intent?
User intents are extracted by mapping linear sequences of events whose realisation may be a purchase, and whose previous step would have been an add to basket. Intent is implicitly explained by these sequences; the higher the repetition of a sequence, the higher the intent.
The problem arises, however, when human intent is explained in the same terms as the intent of lifeless objects.
Object Intentionality
To better understand this problem, I encourage you to ponder the way objects exhibit their intentional states, for example, a thermostat which operates unmysteriously.
In the ordinary physical world a thermostat installed in the street will respond to the particles around it, as a direct correlation with simple causation, in absolute terms — meaning that what caused the thermostat to rise did so in isolation of other possible causes — .
Nonspuriousness is an essential quality behind this simple form of causation, as it needs to be established that no other variables participate in the cause-effect relationship.
Subject Intentionality
A user’s state of mind is left behind when describing intent.
Think of a child whose thoughts and feelings are inseparable, a human being whose conceptualizations of the world can’t be codified by data.
User intent must be recognised as a kind of intent which exists through human behaviour, hence different from the intentional states of objects. If this distinction is not made, professionals of the digital world are put in a data hole.
Since mental states (and the way humans conceptualise their world) are out of data’s radar, the digital industry decides to ignore them and concieve information systems with no consideration to the emotive markers behind intentionality and human behavior.
Data and Feelings
Everyone has difficulties in understanding feelings, but this does not justify that we reduce intentionality to a linear interpretation, one that makes the following assumptions:
No completion (i.e. not checking-out) means that no intent was present.
Not following the previous steps (i.e. not clicking or not adding to cart) is an anti-intent declaration.
An intent is one thing alone.
Why Decode Intent?
Most digital professionals have given a resolute cold shoulder to emotions in the interpretation of digital value, neglecting feelings because of data’s inability to understand them and deciding to downgrade humans to the qualities of lifeless objects.
We have codified human intentionality to bring it down to data’s abilities, as if making users comprehensible was to give us the entitlement to forget our own emotive nature.
Why not resource to imagination, creativity and the principles of aesthetics to evoke positive feelings regardless of whether data can see them?
