nonwelicitcentric

Nonwelicitentric is an adjective describing a methodological stance that deliberately avoids centering elicitation in the collection and interpretation of information. Proponents emphasize non-elicited data sources, such as observational records, behavioral traces, automated telemetry, and unscripted analysis, to reduce elicitation bias and social desirability effects. The approach is commonly discussed in fields such as social science, human–computer interaction, and cognitive ergonomics.

Origin and terminology: The term is a neologism formed by combining non- with welicitcentric, a coined form intended to mean 'not centered on elicitation.' It appears in theoretical discussions about research design and data inference; it is not yet a standard term in any formal taxonomy and may be used variably by different authors.

Applications: In UX and product research, nonwelicitcentric design favors passive data collection, ethnographic methods, diary studies, and A/B testing over heavily scripted interviews. In AI and knowledge elicitation, it informs attempts to infer preferences and capabilities from behavior, rather than relying exclusively on direct questions or prompts.

Limitations and critique: Critics warn that non-elicited data can be incomplete, noisy, or unrepresentative of explicit user concerns. The method often requires larger data sets and careful bias controls, and it is most effective when complementary elicitation methods are used to triangulate findings.

See also: elicitation, noninvasive data collection, ethnography, observational study.