Designing for Emotion Regulation Interventions: An Agenda for HCI Theory and Research

• Published in: ACM transactions on computer-human interaction 2023-03, Vol.30 (1), p.1-51, Article 13
• Main Authors: Slovak, Petr, Antle, Alissa, Theofanopoulou, Nikki, Daudén Roquet, Claudia, Gross, James, Isbister, Katherine
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: HCI theory, concepts and models; Human-centered computing
• ISSN: 1073-0516; 1557-7325
• DOI: 10.1145/3569898

There is a growing interest in human-computer interaction (HCI) to envision, design, and evaluate technology-enabled interventions that support users’ emotion regulation. This interest stems in part from increased recognition that the ability to regulate emotions is critical to mental health, and that a lack of effective emotion regulation is a transdiagnostic factor for mental illness. However, the potential to combine innovative HCI designs with the theoretical grounding and state-of-the-art interventions from psychology has yet to be fully realised. In this article, we synthesise HCI work on emotion regulation interventions and propose a three-part framework to guide technology designers in making: (i) theory-informed decisions about intervention targets; (ii) strategic decisions regarding the technology-enabled intervention mechanisms to be included in the system; and (iii) practical decisions around previous implementations of the selected intervention components. We show how this framework can both systematise HCI work to date and suggest a research agenda for future work.