Allthough present research in intelligent user interfaces is highly diversified the development of knowledge-based tools for interface design can be regarded as one of the major research issues. In this area, so-called model-based approaches represent the most dominant paradigm.
A second research theme that receives growing attention is the application of agent technology in the context of intelligent user interfaces. Interface agents may serve as personal software assistants who collaborate with the user in the same work environment.
With respect to multimodal interfaces a strong emphasis on the integration of real natural language processing seems to be another important trend.
(New Sep. 96) ECAI-96, the 12th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, indicates that the sub-area of intelligent user interfaces receives ever growing interest in the European Artificial Intelligence community. The technical program of this leading bi-annual AI event included for the first time a specific section devoted to intelligent user interfaces and the preceding workshop program offered two workshops related to this field as well.
Interestingly enough, one of the four invited talks was also concerned with specific aspects of more advanced intelligent interfaces. J. Cuena 1996 from the Technical University of Madrid reported on the experience gained from the development of sophisticated real-time decision support systems. This particular application area offers high potential for industrial applications of knowledge-based techniques and more powerful intelligent user interfaces are required since efficient and effective human-machine interaction plays a decisive role in the context of decision support.
(New Apr. 97) With numerous accepted contributions from Europe, the IUI-97 conference also reflects the high quality and diversity of European research efforts in the field of Intelligent User Interfaces. Most notable is a European dominance in the area of adaptive hypermedia systems. Another focus of current research activities in Europe is on the coordination of automated presentations within an intelligent user interface.
(New May 97) The trend towards broader deployment of agent technology also affects research and development efforts in the area of human-computer interaction. Various approaches towards building intelligent user interfaces are concerned with the application of multi-agent architectures. Aiming at service integration, the utilization of open agent architectures is regarded as a promising strategy to facilitate the development of adaptive and extensible interfaces. Applications currently under investigation in Europe cover a broad range of activities, like for example multimedia services on public information kiosks, computer-integrated manufacturing, and information systems for medical applications.
(New Oct. 97) The long-term technological goal of the ESPRIT Long-Term Research pro-active initiative i3 (Intelligent Information Interfaces) is to develop the necessary building blocks for novel human-centered interfaces for interacting with information, aimed at the broad population. The initiative aims to launch research on new forms of interaction that will place the human as an active participant in rather than a passive recipient of information.
To guide the selection of projects, two human-centred visions for future interfaces have been defined:
(New Nov. 97) Gesture is an important element of human interaction and is increasingly becoming feasible as a part of human-computer interaction. The Bielefeld Gesture Workshop 1997 indicates that here is a lot of research under way in Europe concerning gesture-based interfaces, gestural interaction, and the use of sign-language. The integration of gesture as an additional modality for intelligent multimedia interfaces offers new promising possibilities. In particluar, the capability to recognize and synthesize sign-language could allow for the construction of more advanced user interfaces that are better suited to the needs of hearing impaired people.
(New Dec. 97) The HCI-97 conference shows that the utilization of artificial intelligence techniques - including in particular machine learning - plays a significant role within the human-computer interaction research community in Europe. Given the international importance of the conference, the high proportion of contributions from Europe also reflects the high standard of European research in the field of intelligent user interfaces.
(New Jan. 98) The Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology in Germany has launched a new large program called ``Innovations for the Knowledge Society - Program for Promoting Information Technology'' to fund research and development in the area of information technology. The main focus of the program lies on eight different thematic areas. Among these distinct topics, several ones seem to be interesting with respect to the field of intelligent user interfaces. The theme named Service is concerned with knowledge intensive tele-services and specifically focussed on multimedia technology and tele-cooperation systems. Based on the vison of the ``knowledge city'', Mediapolis aims at demonstrating the use of a broad range of multimedia applications in a regional context. Vision stands for visualization of knowledge contents and concentrates mainly on the development of advanced visualization systems. Particularly interesting is the theme called Dialog, which is specifically concerned with user adequate human-machine interaction. According to the program description, intelligent systems, language technology, and knowledge processing are regarded as important research fields with respect to this topic area.
(New Feb. 98) Considering the 1997 ACM International Multimedia Conference, several accepted contributions originating from Europe are of particular relevance to the field of intelligent user interfaces. The specific topics covered include frameworks for adaptible hypermedia systems, authoring tools for animated interface agents, and empirical studies concerning the user's perception and memorization of multimedia presentations. Compared to the USA, however, relatively few European researchers were actively participating at the conference.
(New March 98) In the face of omnipresent computer applications and the anticipated widespread use of emerging telematic services theres is a growing need for the design of high quality user interfaces accessible and usable by a diverse user population with different abilities, requirements and preferences. The vision of constructing user interfaces for all - including people with different cultural, educational, training and employment background, novice and experienced computer users, the very young and the elderly and people with different types of disabilities - constitutes an important goal of European research and development activities in the area of human-computer interaction.
Intelligent user interface techniques play a significant role for the design of human-machine interfaces, which not only support more efficient and effective user interaction, but also address the individual end user needs, requirements, skills and expectations, while exhibiting a wide range of intelligent and cooperative behaviour. The European trend to advanced artficial intelligence methods in support of adaptable and adaptive interaction, user modeling, multimedia/multimodal interfaces, virtual and augmented reality, etc., is well reflected by the contributions to the ERCIM (European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics) workshop on ``User Interfaces for All'' (see Stephanidis and Carbonell [1997]).
(New April 98) The European contributions to IUI-98, the Annual International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, show a particular focus on animated interface agents. Within the field of intelligent user interfaces this seems to be one of those specific research areas where European research groups have gained a leading position on the international level.
(New June 98) CHI-98, the annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems organized by the Association for Computing Machinery , shows a significant number of accepted contributions which stem from European researchers. Covering all aspects of human-computer interaction many of these papers describe current results that are also highly relevant for advanced research fields like intelligent user interfaces and multimedia information presentation. Major themes in this area include for example avatars and life-like characters to be used as interface agents, the application of speech interaction, new input techniques and modalities, intelligent support for multimedia designers, and augmented reality systems for real-time control tasks. Another hot topic where European research groups seem to play a leading role is the integration of real architectural spaces and virtual information spaces.
(New July 98) The 1998 International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces AVI-98 reveals interesting new trends in knowledge-based graphics generation and intelligent user interfaces. The conference program reflects a particular interest in Augmented Reality which enables novel applications with user interfaces that provide a linking of the real environment with virtual worlds. The demo presentations given by European researchers showed a broad variety of research protoypes operating in various application domains. A specific focus of the numerous contributions from Europe lay on the visualization of information spaces as well as interacting through different modalities. Furthermore, it turns out that aspects of usability constitute a salient issue in the area of advanced visual user interfaces.
(New Sep. 98) COLING/ACL-98, the joint conference combining the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the International Conference on Computational Linguistics , constitutes the major event in 1998 regarding the general field of Computational Linguistics. European researchers showed a strong presence at this important conference. A large number of accepted contributions and about one third of the participants originated from Europe. Despite the very broad scope of the conference a significant number of papers is concerned with the specific sub-area of natural language generation which obviously constitutes a major research area also in Europe. Another hot topic with particular relevance for the construction of intelligent user interfaces relates to multimodality. The combination of natural language, either spoken or written language, with other media like graphics and animation has evolved into an important research issue also within the computational linguistics community. The active participation of European research groups at the special workshop on Content Visualization and Intermedia Representations underlines this research trend. A further interesting research area is characterized by investigations that focus on aspects regarding the dialog structures in human-machine interaction.
(New Oct. 98) As a premier European forum for presenting recent advances in all fields of AI research the 13th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence , ECAI-98, is also a good indicator for current trends in the various research areas. The most prominent trend in the area of intelligent user interfaces and related fields seems to be a specific focus on the application of AI methods for better utilization of graphics. A special workshop named ``AI and Graphics for the Interface of the Future'' demonstrated the variety of research activities in this area. A somewhat related topic is the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques for virtual environments where graphical displays play a dominant role as well. A workshop specifically dedicated to Intelligent Virtual Environments shows that virtual environments are more and more seen as an interesting application field for intelligent user interface technology.
(New Nov. 98) An important new research trend in the area of intelligent user interfaces is a specific focus on futuristic learning environments. In the context of i3 , the ESPRIT European Long-Term Research pro-active initiative on Intelligent Information Interfaces , a new research program dedicated to Experimental School Environments (ESE) has been launched. ESE focuses on the school environment of the future for the 4 to 8 years old. The projects within this i3 research program can roughly be categorized into the the following three groups:
(New Dec. 98) A special issue of the German Artificial Intelligence journal KI (see André and Rist [1998]) shows the growing interest in intelligent information agents as an important subarea of intelligent user interfaces research. Current research and development activities in this field cover a broad range of application scenarios. Concrete examples include browsing assistants, tour guides and adaptive Web servers, agent-supported information brokering, customer guidance for electronic market places and assistance for electronic product catalogs. Field-tested applications illustrate the high commercial potential of the technology.
(New Feb. 99) IUI-99, the annual International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces , once again demonstrates the broad variety and excellence of European research activities in the area of intelligent user interfaces. In fact, a contribution originating from Europe received a best paper award. Current research trends, as reflected in the conference program, are characterized through a special emphasis on agent-based, multimedia interaction and a particular focus on reactive and adaptive user interfaces. A further interesting topic are so-called programmable or instructable user interfaces which allow users to customize the underlying intelligent system.