Intelligent User Interfaces

Annotated Bibliography


Index of Articles in this Bibliography

Intelligent User Interfaces
William E. Hefley and Dianne Murray
Proceedings of 1993 International Workshop on Intelligent User Interfaces

In this paper, the authors take different research ideas and place them into a structure. They address design and implementation issues. Much of the work which has been done in the field of intelligent interfacing has been done in dialogue understanding and user modelling to support user assistance, thereby providing usable presentations, error remediation, and tutoring. There has also been work done on adaptable interfaces.
There are two issues which must be considered in order to make these types of systems work effectively: How can we model the user/operator in complex time-critical environments; and how can this knowledge be worked into the design of interfaces to enhance human-computer interaction and overall system effectiveness? There are difficulties inherent in dynamic modelling: how to get information, how the information should be represented, and how effective dialogue can be devised using the information. There are also privacy and ethical issues which this paper did not discuss.
Many complex systems demand that the operator work in two capacities: as a supervisor when the system is operating normally, and as a manual controller during emergency or degraded conditions. Both of these require the operator to have knowledge of the integration of the system as a whole as well as the details of its functions.
There are five levels of interaction in human-computer systems: To reduce the complexity of a user's role in complex tasks, either the user's skill should be increased or the task should be made more simple. It is very important to prevent errors in high-performance systems. Moreover, providing a way to improve the user's skill is important in providing users with guidance so they can think clearly and knowledgably about a problem and work effectively with that understanding.
Different groups of people interact differently with computer systems. Often, users are classified as experts or novices, frequent or infrequent users. This is a consideration which must be thought about when designing effective interfaces.
There are three potential roles of the user interface: This paper gounds its design and implementation in user interface management systems (UIMS). UIMS are high-level interactive software applications intended to design, specify, prototype, execute, evaluate, and maintain end-user interfaces. The UIMS has three components between the user and the application program:

SAGE

Interactive Sketching for the Early Stages of User Interface Design
James A. Landay and Brad A. Myers
CHI '95 Mosaic of Creativity

Synopsis
This paper discussed a system, SILK (Sketching Interfaces Like Krazy), which allows designers to quickly draw out an interface. This allows prototypical interfaces to be created rapidly by using common gestures in sketch drawing and editing. The system takes the designer's sketch and transforms it into an interface.

Significance
The system allows the user to create an interface, but the interface created is not intelligent.

Intelligent Interface
The intelligence here is in the multimodal communication between the user and the system. The user is able to draw sketches and use gestures, which the program understands and interprets into a working interface.

A Problem-oriented Classification of Visualization Techniques
Stephen Wehrend and Clayton Lewis
IEEE 1990

Synopsis
This article discusses scientific visualization, in which users of a system may visualize their application domain. Progress would be accelerated if workers could use these techniques in their work. There are many ways to visualize data with different qualities. For example, in a system where there are objects which are round or square, white or red, and short or tall, the worker may wish to compare the red items to the white ones, or the short ones to the tall ones. One way to determine the appropriate method of display is to anayze the user's goals.

Significance
This was an interesting article. Intelligent interfaces and visualization techniques could definitely impact how workers do their tasks.

Intelligent Interface
Intelligent visualization of data is what gives this system its intelligent interface.

Intelligent User Interfaces: Issues, Approaches, Evaluation
Loren Terveen, AT&T Bell Laboratories
(Slides)

Synposis, Significance, and Intelligence
These slides presented an excellent working knowledge as to what intelligent interfaces are. By their nature, slides are notes, so it would be redundant to describe what the slides discussed.

Articles from Intelligent User Interfaces

Joseph W. Sullivan, and Sherman W. Tyler, eds.
(C) 1991 ACM Press


Intelligent Multi-Media Interface Technology
Jeannette G. Neal and Stuart C. Shapiro
Synopsis
This project attempts to apply artificial intelligence to HCI technology which would incorporate speech input, speech output, natural language text, graphics, and pointing gestures. The objective is to simplify communication with complex systems by making the interaction more natural. The authors create a proof-of-concept prototype called CUBRICON. With this, you could, for example, say "Change the color of this to blue" while pointing to 'this'. The combination of visual, tactile, visual, and gestural communications is referred to as the unified view of language. The system produces relevent output using multimedia techniques.

CUBRICON is a system for Air Force Command and Control.

Several knowledge sources are needed for CUBRICON to perform its tasks: Each of these sources are explained in detail in the article.

The actual working of the program is quite interesting. The user can, for example, say, "Is this a steel plant?", and CURBICON might use speech to say, "No, it is a munitions factory." Or, the user can ask, "Where is the Dresden airbase?", and the computer would respond (with speech), "The map on the color graphics screen is being expanded to include the Dresden airbase." The computer would then say, "The Dresden airbase is located here," as the Dresden airbase icon and a pointing text box blink.

Significance
This is an excellent example of an intelligent interface. Its user model is especially well developed, showing maps with different icons to different types of people (the icons shown are determined by the type of person who wants to view them. For example, the system would not show country cottages to a military mission planner).

Intelligent Interface
This system supports multimodal communication as well as intelligent data display.

User and Discourse Models for Multimodal Communication
Wolfgang Walhster


Synopsis
The author starts by stating that in human-human conversation there is a frequent use of gestures (especially pointing) to accentuate the meaning of what is being said. The point of the paper is how multimodal (talking as well as gesturing) communication can influence the user model and discourse model of an intelligent interface.

One of the problems with gesturing is that while it is natural, it could also be ambiguous or vague. The article goes on to discuss various applications of gesturing, as well as ways to implement its use.

Significance
The article was interesting, but it is not of much use to my research, since I won't be working on a system which uses gestures (although that would be very interesting).

Intelligent Interface

Multimodal communication; specifically, gesturing

The Contributing Influence of Speech and Interaction on Human Discourse Patterns
Sharon L. Oviatt and Philip R. Cohen

Synopsis
This paper studied various methods of multimodal communication: It presented the methods, results, and interpretations from the study.

Significance
The study was interesting to read, and is important to intelligent interfacing (speech communication between the user and the system would make interfaces easier to use and more friendly).

Intelligent Interface
Speech communication

An Intelligent Interface Architecture for Adaptive Interaction
Sherman W. Tyler, et al.

Synopsis Discusses CHORIS, the Computer-Human Object-oriented Reasoning Interface System, a generic architecture for intint developed at Lockheed. The current CHORIS domain is an emergency crisis management system. This system uses intelligent display of data and accepts input as natural language. It also has a Plan Manager, which assists the user through its knowledge of typical plans for high-level goals.

Significance This is a very interesting system to look at because it contains a lot of ideas that I can use in my program.

Intelligent Interface Intelligent data display, plan recognition, accepts natural language

General User Modeling: A Facility to Support Intelligent Interaction
Robert Kass and Tim Finin

Synopsis This article discusses the notion of a "general user model" which could be applied to a variety of systems. The authors present an extensive diagram which shows many uses of the user model (unfortunately, the diagram wouldn't scan well, so here it is in list format). The authors also designed a system called GUMS (General User Modeling System).

Significance The user model is one of the most important components of an intelligent interface. This article presented very good applications of user models.

Intelligent Interface User modeling

Intelligent Interfaces as Agents David N. Chin

Synopsis This article discusses UCEgo, the intelligent agent component of UNIX Consultant, a system used to help users with problems encountered while working with UNIX. The system also recognizes user goals, which are divided into themes, plans, subgoals, and metagoals; and user misconceptions.

Significance This is a very interesting system. It takes into consideration things such as acting ethically and being polite to the user. It is particularly interesting to see the examples given when a user has a misconception, which the system clarifies.

Intelligent Interface Natural language, goals

Structuring Programs to Support Intelligent Interfaces Pedro Szekely

Synopsis This article discusses structuring programs so that they can effectively use intelligent interfaces. The author gives an example of a chess program. The user uses a mouse to select and drag pieces. The system is able to tell the user what moves are legal or illegal.

Significance The article didn't seem to have too much significance. It appeared as if the chess example wasn't very intelligent, but maybe that's a case of things not seeming intelligent once they're accomplished (see introduction).

Intelligent Interface No actual IntInt techniques used, but examples given demonstrate how to work IntInt techniques into existing programs.

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