Interactionnamely

Interactionnamely is a proposed framework for naming and labeling individual interactions within a system to enable precise analysis of interaction sequences across humans, devices, and software agents. The central idea is to assign explicit, machine-readable identifiers to discrete interactions and to organize those identifiers within a hierarchical taxonomy that reflects domain, modality, and function.

Origins and scope: The term was introduced in theoretical discussions of interaction design and data logging to address challenges in tracing complex exchanges, such as dialog systems and collaborative workflows. It is not a widely adopted standard, but a conceptual model used in scholarly and design contexts to explore naming conventions for interactions.

Principles: The framework emphasizes unique identifiers, contextual descriptors, modular taxonomy, and interoperability across platforms. Names typically combine domain prefixes (for example UI, API, voice) with functional tags (start, respond, confirm) and serial numbers, forming codes like IN-UI-START-001. The approach supports lineage tracking, enabling reconstruction of interaction chains and debugging.

Implementation: Establish a formal taxonomy, define event schemas, integrate into logging and analytics pipelines, and provide tooling to generate and resolve interaction names. The method stresses consistency and documentation to avoid ambiguity.

Applications: User experience research, debugging and auditing of conversational agents, analysis of multi-agent coordination, and compliance workflows. It supports reproducibility of experiments and clearer communication among teams.

Limitations and critique: Additional naming overhead, potential over-narrowing of interactions, risk of inconsistency across teams, and privacy considerations in naming sensitive interactions.

See also: interaction design, event logging, ontologies, discourse markers, named-entity tagging.