"Model World" to "Magic World": Making Visual Objects the Medium for Intelligent Design Assistance

Sunday, May 7

Direct manipulation is the dominant paradigm in modern interface design. A "model world" is created in which graphical objects represent objects in a particular domain, and users perform domain actions with gestures of a pointing device. "Intelligent agents" are usually seen as a competitor to direct manipulation, probably because agents are typically presumed to communicate using natural language.The goal of this workshop is to explore methods that enable agents (especially design support agents) to deliver assistance by manipulating the display of visual objects. Agents need not be "talking heads;" rather, they can communicate much information visually, e.g., by adding or deleting graphical objects and changing visual properties of existing objects. The "model world" becomes a "magic world," which changes not only in response to user actions, but also due to the workings of hidden, helpful hands.Through this workshop, participants will develop an understanding of the nature and scope of this approach. We will consider when the approach is appropriate, its advantages and disadvantages relative to purely textual communication, and ways to integrate textual and visual methods. We also will compare various visual communication techniques and explore the influence of factors such as the task and the type of information being communicated.

This one-day workshop is limited to 20 participants.

Contact:

Loren Terveen
AT&T; Bell Laboratories, 2C-401
600 Mountain Avenue,
Murray Hill, NJ 07974 USA
E-mail: terveen@research.att.com
Tel: +1 908 582 2608
Fax: +1 908 582 2550