Intelligent User Interfaces

 The area of intelligent user interfaces covers a variety of topics concerned with the application of Artificial Intelligence and knowledge-based techniques to issues of human-computer interaction.

Computer applications grow increasingly complex and through the use of artificial intelligence technology software systems begin to achieve the ability to reason and make decisions on their own. Consequently, the design of effective and efficient human-computer interfaces becomes ever more critical to overall system performance. Advanced applications are characterized by large amounts of information to be conveyed and understood, complex task structures, real-time performance characteristics, and incorporation of autonomous or semiautonomous agents. The requirements imposed by human-computer interaction with such systems exceed the capabilities of conventional interfaces which often fail to reflect the semantics of its users' tasks and problem domain properly. Intelligent user interfaces aim to cope with these serious semantic problems and help users to access information or solve complex tasks by being sensitive to a user's knowledge, misconceptions, goals, and plans.

Main issues addressed by intelligent user interface research are the following:

• How can interaction be made clearer and more efficient?
• How can interfaces offer better support for their users' tasks, plans, and goals?
• How can information be presented more effectively?
• How can the design and implementation of good interfaces be made easier?

Selected References:

  

• H. Bunt, R.-J. Beun, T. Borghuis (eds.): Proc. of the International Conference on Cooperative Multimodal Communication CMC/95, 24-26 May 1995, Eindhoven. Samenwerkingsorgaan Brabantse Universiteiten (SOBU), 1995.
• M. H. Chignell, P. A. Hancock: Intelligent Interface Design. In: M. Helander (ed.), Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction. Amsterdam: North-Holland, pp. 969-995, 1988.
• Proc. of IWIUI '93: International Workshop on Intelligent User Interfaces, 4-7 January 1993, Orlando, Florida. Association for Computing Machinery, 1993.
• M. T. Maybury (ed.): Intelligent Multimedia Interfaces. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press, 1993.
• J. W. Sullivan, S. W. Tyler (eds.): Intelligent User Interfaces. ACM Press Frontier Series, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1991.