The Presentation Generation Process

The presentation planner receives as input the specification of a presentation task. The main presentation goal is to inform the user about the results obtained by the problem solving model in reply to the user query. First, a presentation plan including production and presentation acts needs to be constructed. On the basis of this presentation structure a concrete schedule for executing the presentation has to be determined taking into the account the temporal constraints imposed by the presentation plan.

 

Figure 13: Schedule for Executing the Presentation Plan 

 

Figure 14: Presentation Script for a Delay Situation 

   (SetDialogState
     (QueryWhatMayHappen ("line_direction('NEGARVILLE')" 
                          "nil" "nil" "What may happen"))
     (QueryWhatToDo ("line(63)" "nil" "What can be done")))


   (SetLayout$VerticalTextGraphics [0 1]  Text Graphics 5 20)
   (ShowBusLine      [2 3]   Graphics 63)
   (ShowAllLineStops [2 3]   Graphics 63)
   (ShowText         [3 4]   Text 
     "A non-uniform delay situation has been detected for line 63.")
   (ShowVehicle      [5 6]   Graphics  1344 18832 25)
   (ShowVehicle      [5 6]   Graphics  1460 16832 25)
   (ShowVehicle      [5 6]   Graphics  1397 14976 25)
   (ShowVehicle      [5 6]   Graphics  1484 14876 25)
   (ShowVehicle      [5 6]   Graphics  1390 10936 25)
   (ShowVehicle      [5 6]   Graphics  1463 9728  25)
   (ShowVehicle      [5 6]   Graphics  1399 5904  25)
   (ShowVehicle      [5 6]   Graphics  1396 3288  25)
   (ShowText         [15 16] Text "Vehicle no. 1397 is affected.")
   (ShowVehicle      [15 16] Graphics  1397 14976 25)
   (ShowRedBlinker   [15 2000] Graphics 14976 25)
   (ShowText         [22 23] Text "It has a delay of about 12 minutes.")
   (ShowLabel        [23 24] Graphics "-12" 14976 45)

 

Figure 15: Resulting Presentation 

Figure 13 illustrates the schedule for the presentation plan shown in Fig. 11.

The final result of the planning process is a presentation script which in turn can be executed by the presentation engine in order to generate the perceivable output of the intelligent interface. Figure 14 contains the resulting presentation script for the delay scenario already considered. A view on the result of executing this script is given in Fig. 15. As can be seen from this example, also the next potential dialog moves to be offered to the operator are controlled by the presentation generation process. In this case, dialog design decided to enable a what_may_happen and a what_to_do query in order to learn more about the problem situation or to ask for corrective actions.