Multi-Level Cooperative Dialogue in Intelligent Front Ends

The control of multi--level cooperative dialogue is considered a difficult problem in knowledge based systems but may be easier to tackle in the more restricted domain of Intelligent Front Ends. This paper discusses the requirement for multi--level cooperative dialogue in IFE programs and describes several techniques for supporting this form of interaction, using examples from implemented systems. Acknowledgements The work described in this paper was part of the ECO project, funded by SERC Grant GR/E/00730. I would like to thank the other participants in this project (Alan Bundy, Bob Muetzelfeldt, Mike Uschold and Mandy Haggith) for their contributions to this research. 1 Introduction The nature of the dialogue conducted by an Intelligent Front End (IFE) is a crucial factor in determining whether the IFE will be accepted by the users for whom it has been designed. A common feature of most IFE dialogues is that they are cooperative, in the sense that both the IFE program and its users..