End-user adoption of animated interface agents in everyday work applications

Recognizing the potential contribution that interactive software agents bring to everyday work applications, this paper reports on end-user adoption of animated interface agents in one particular work application environment: Microsoft 1 Office. The paper develops and empirically tests a theoretical model of the factors affecting an end-user’s choice to adopt and utilize such interface agents. From this theoretical model, a survey instrument was adapted and administered to 261 participants, familiar with animated interface agents. Results from a partial least squares (PLS) analysis indicates that a variety of factors are at play, which inhibit or foster a person’s choice to utilize and adopt animated interface agents. Of significance is that: (a) both perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment are important influencing factors; (b) users with high scores in innovativeness toward information technology are less likely to find animated interface agents enjoyable; (c) individuals with high animation predisposition scores perceive animated interface agents to be more enjoyable; and (d) users who perceive animated interface agents to be more enjoyable also perceive them to be more useful. Such insights can be used to leverage the introduction and rollout of animated interface agents in everyday work applications in ways that promote their avid adoption and use

Virtual Team Assistant - Integration von synchroner und asynchroner Telekooperation zur Unterstützung automatisierter Vorgangsbearbeitung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Arbeitsteams

Mit dem Virtual Team Assistant entwickelt Georg Schneider ein System zur Unterstützung von Arbeitsteams bei der ganzheitlichen Prozessbearbeitung. Der Autor fokussiert die Schnittstellen zwischen synchroner und asynchroner computergestützter Arbeit und zeigt diese am Beispiel der Integration von Workflow-Management-Systemen und multimedialen Audio-/Video-Desktopkonferenzen auf. Dabei werden Erkenntnisse aus Sozialpsychologie und CSCW (Computergestützter Gruppenarbeit) untersucht und operationalisiert. Im Vordergrund stehen die Integration von Teams in die Aufbauorganisation eines Unternehmens, des Terminmanagement für Konferenzen, die automatische Konferenzvorbereitung der Teilnehmer und Messung sowie die Verbesserung der Leistungsfähigkeit der Teams.Liegt nicht vor

Virtual Team Assistant - Integration von synchroner und asynchroner Telekooperation zur Unterstützung automatisierter Vorgangsbearbeitung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Arbeitsteams

Mit dem Virtual Team Assistant entwickelt Georg Schneider ein System zur Unterstützung von Arbeitsteams bei der ganzheitlichen Prozessbearbeitung. Der Autor fokussiert die Schnittstellen zwischen synchroner und asynchroner computergestützter Arbeit und zeigt diese am Beispiel der Integration von Workflow-Management-Systemen und multimedialen Audio-/Video-Desktopkonferenzen auf. Dabei werden Erkenntnisse aus Sozialpsychologie und CSCW (Computergestützter Gruppenarbeit) untersucht und operationalisiert. Im Vordergrund stehen die Integration von Teams in die Aufbauorganisation eines Unternehmens, des Terminmanagement für Konferenzen, die automatische Konferenzvorbereitung der Teilnehmer und Messung sowie die Verbesserung der Leistungsfähigkeit der Teams.Liegt nicht vor

Modelos flexibles de conocimiento estructurado para soporte de interfaces inteligentes para ayuda a la decisión

Resumen En los últimos años, el desarrollo de la tecnología telemática ha introducido cambios significativos en los escenarios de operación en tiempo real, que han hecho necesaria la presencia de sistemas informáticos que facilitasen a los operadores el aprovechamiento de la gran cantidad de información recibida y proporcionasen soporte en el proceso de toma de decisiones. El éxito de esta cooperación para la realización de tareas depende de la capacidad del sistema para comunicarse adecuadamente con los usuarios. * Esta tesis aborda el problema de enriquecer el nivel de interacción entre sistemas y usuarios mediante la incorporación de una inteligencia capaz de explotar las capacidades de resolución de problemas del sistema en la dirección marcada por las características de un diálogo. Esta inteligencia surge de la integración de ideas provenientes de los Sistemas Inteligentes y de los Interfaces de Usuario Inteligentes, y toma forma en una arquitectura reflexiva, llamada ROHCI, en la que se distinguen los siguientes elementos: Un modelo de interacción estructurado por clases de preguntas que define los elementos en torno a los que se desarrollará el proceso comunicativo. r Un conjunto de métodos de resolución de problemas, soportados por conocimiento del dominio y organizados como un modelo estructurado de conocimiento, con los que generar la información solicitada por el usuario en sus consultas. Un razonador metanivel, donde reside la capacidad reflexiva del sistema, que decide dinámicamente el tipo de respuesta que debe proporcionarse al usuario y r los métodos de resolución de problemas que deben intervenir para obtenerla, en función de las características del usuario y el contexto del diálogo. Una memoria del diálogo, en donde se mantiene de forma consistente el conjunto de creencias comunes al sistema y el usuario generadas durante el diálogo y que asegura la coherencia de la interacción usuario-sistema en el tiempo. ^ La viabilidad de la arquitectura ROHCI se muestra con su aplicación en un problema de dimensión real, diseñando y construyendo un sistema de ayuda a la decisión en la gestión del transporte público de la ciudad de Turin. / Abstract In the last years, the evolution of the telematics technology introduced significant changes in the real time operation scenarios that made necessary the development of advanced information systems. These systems should facilitate the operators the management of large amounts of information and support these operators in the decision making process. The success of this cooperative task performance lies on the capacity of the system to adequatelly communicate the information to the users. This thesis aims to improve the user-system interaction level by means of an intelligence capable to exploit the problem solving capabilities of a system according to the characteristics of a dialogue. This intelligence results from the integration of ideas taken from the Intelligent Systems and Intelligent User Interfaces research areas, and it is supported by a reflective architecture, named ROHCI, where the following elements can be distinguished: An interaction model structured in classes of questions that establishes the elements to be used in a communicative process. A collection of problem solving methods, supported by domain knowledge and organized in a structured knowledge model, that are used to generate the information required by the users. A metalevel reasoner, supporting the reflective capability of the system, which dynamically decides the type of answer to be provided to the user and the problem solving methods that should generate this answer, according to the characteristics of the user and the context of the dialogue. A memory of the dialogue that includes a consistent set of assumptions generated along the dialogue that are common to the user and the system. This memory supports tiKe coherence of the user-system interaction along the time. The feasibility of the ROHCI architecture is illustrated with its application to a real world problem. It was used to design and implement a decision support system to manage the public transport in the city of Turi

PRESTK : situation-aware presentation of messages and infotainment content for drivers

The amount of in-car information systems has dramatically increased over the last few years. These potentially mutually independent information systems presenting information to the driver increase the risk of driver distraction. In a first step, orchestrating these information systems using techniques from scheduling and presentation planning avoid conflicts when competing for scarce resources such as screen space. In a second step, the cognitive capacity of the driver as another scarce resource has to be considered. For the first step, an algorithm fulfilling the requirements of this situation is presented and evaluated. For the second step, I define the concept of System Situation Awareness (SSA) as an extension of Endsley’s Situation Awareness (SA) model. I claim that not only the driver needs to know what is happening in his environment, but also the system, e.g., the car. In order to achieve SSA, two paths of research have to be followed: (1) Assessment of cognitive load of the driver in an unobtrusive way. I propose to estimate this value using a model based on environmental data. (2) Developing model of cognitive complexity induced by messages presented by the system. Three experiments support the claims I make in my conceptual contribution to this field. A prototypical implementation of the situation-aware presentation management toolkit PRESTK is presented and shown in two demonstrators.In den letzten Jahren hat die Menge der informationsanzeigenden Systeme im Auto drastisch zugenommen. Da sie potenziell unabhängig voneinander ablaufen, erhöhen sie die Gefahr, die Aufmerksamkeit des Fahrers abzulenken. Konflikte entstehen, wenn zwei oder mehr Systeme zeitgleich auf limitierte Ressourcen wie z. B. den Bildschirmplatz zugreifen. Ein erster Schritt, diese Konflikte zu vermeiden, ist die Orchestrierung dieser Systeme mittels Techniken aus dem Bereich Scheduling und Präsentationsplanung. In einem zweiten Schritt sollte die kognitive Kapazität des Fahrers als ebenfalls limitierte Ressource berücksichtigt werden. Der Algorithmus, den ich zu Schritt 1 vorstelle und evaluiere, erfüllt alle diese Anforderungen. Zu Schritt 2 definiere ich das Konzept System Situation Awareness (SSA), basierend auf Endsley’s Konzept der Situation Awareness (SA). Dadurch wird erreicht, dass nicht nur der Fahrer sich seiner Umgebung bewusst ist, sondern auch das System (d.h. das Auto). Zu diesem Zweck m¨ussen zwei Bereiche untersucht werden: (1) Die kognitive Belastbarkeit des Fahrers unaufdringlich ermitteln. Dazu schlage ich ein Modell vor, das auf Umgebungsinformationen basiert. (2) Ein weiteres Modell soll die Komplexität der präsentierten Informationen bestimmen. Drei Experimente stützen die Behauptungen in meinem konzeptuellen Beitrag. Ein Prototyp des situationsbewussten Präsentationsmanagement-Toolkits PresTK wird vorgestellt und in zwei Demonstratoren gezeigt

Decision-Theoretic Planning for User-Adaptive Systems: Dealing With Multiple Goals and Resource Limitations

While there exists a number of user-adaptive systems that use decision-theoretic methods to make individual decisions, decision-theoretic planning has hardly been exploited in the context of useradaptive systems so far. This thesis focuses on the application of decision-theoretic planning in user-adaptive systems and demonstrates how competing goals and resource limitations of the user can be considered in such an approach. The approach is illustrated with examples from the following domains: user-adaptive assistance for operating a technical device, user-adaptive navigation recommendations in an airport scenario, and finally user-adaptive and location-aware shopping assistance. With the shopping assistant, we have analyzed usability issues of a system based on decision-theoretic planning in two user studies. We describe how hard time constraints, as they are induced, for example, by the boarding of the passenger in an airport navigation scenario, can be considered in a decision-theoretic approach. Moreover, we propose a hierarchical decision-theoretic planning approach based on goal priorization, which keeps the complexity of dealing with realistic problems tractable. Furthermore, we specify the general workflow for the development and application of Markov decision processes to be applied in user-adaptive systems, and we describe possibilities to enhance a user-adaptive system based on decision-theoretic planning by an explanation component

Adding animated presentation agents to the interface

A growing number of research projects both in academia and industries have started to investigate the use of animated agents in the interface. Such agents, either based on real video, cartoon-style drawings or even model-based 3D graphics, are likely to become integral parts of future user interfaces. To be useful, however, interface agents have to be intelligent in the sense that they exhibit a reasonable behavior. In this paper, we present a system that uses a lifelike character, the so-called PPP Persona, to present multimedia material to the user. This material has been either automatically generated or fetched from the web and modified if necessary. The underlying approach is based on our previous work on multimedia presentation planning. This core approach is complemented by additional concepts, namely the temporal coordination of presentation acts and the consideration of the human-factors dimension of the added visual metaphor