User Interfaces, Personification,

and Criticisms from

the UI CommunityRichard Lachman Jonathan Klein

Software Agents SeminarMonday, November 25, 1996

The Agenda

• I. User Interface Design for Software Agents

• II. The Personification Issue

• III. Complaints from the User-Interface Community

Part I: User Interface Design for Software Agents

Part II: Personification in the interface

Part III: Complaints from the User Interface Community

User Interface Design for Software Agents

• Software agent UI Design issues

• How to ensure usefulness and usability

• Tricks of the UI design trade

UI Design Issues Relevant to Agents

• Understanding - does user understand agent? can user trust the agent?

• Control - how does user control agent?

• Distraction - how to minimize distraction?

• Ease of use - how expert does user have to be?

• Personification - how to represent agent to user?

Issue 1: Understanding

Problem: Agent-User collaboration is only succesful if the user can understand & trust the agent:

–How do we give users insight into agent state and functioning?

–How does the person learn all that an agent can do?

Issue 1: Understanding

Solution:– Make user model available to user;

– give continuous feedback to user about agent’s state, actions & learning

Issue 2: Control

Problem: Users must be able to turn over control of tasks to agents which act “autonomously” – but users must not feel out of control.–How do we allow agents to do work but not

be too independent of the user?

–How do we accommodate different users wanting different amounts of control?

Issue 2: Control

Solution:– allow variable degrees of autonomy;

– allow user to decide on level of autonomy;

– allow user programming of the agent

Issue 3: Distraction

Problem: Autonomous agents should keep user informed and interrupt if necessary.– How can users control the level of interaction they

want from agents?

– When is an issue/event important enough that the agent is allowed to interrupt?

– How can agent actions be made known to users without unnecessary interruption?

Issue 3: Distraction

Solution:– gradually decrease number of interruptions;

– allow user to program situations that require interruption;

– give feedback about agent behavior without requiring user’s full attention

Issue 4: Ease of Use

Problem: Agents should be employed for tasks users cannot or do not want to concern themselves with. If using the agent is too complex, users will not use them.–How do we enable users to instruct agents

without requiring programming?

–How do we enable agents to fit unobtrusively into users' task environments?

Issue 4: Ease of Use

Solution:• avoid making user learn a new

language

• use language of application to communicate between agent & user

Issue 5: Personification

Problem: Personification is a natural process. Agents are often personified to remind the user that a process is at work taking action on their behalf.–How can we personify without misleading

people into thinking the computer is intelligent?

–How can we take advantage of personification tendencies?

Issue 5: Personification

Solution: ???• jury is still out on this one...

• pros: Laurel, Nass, ...

• cons: Schneiderman, Lanier, Norman, ...

• experiments: Koda, King, Walker, ...

Personified Agents Research

• issues:– animation

– facial expressions

– gestures

– natural language/speech I/O

– ...

• see LCC Conferences

Other Agent UI Design Issues

• Hiding complexity while revealing underlying operations

• Promoting accurate expectations

• Minimizing false hopes

• Built-in safeguards against “runaway computation”

• Addressing privacy concerns

How to ensure usefulness and usability in your agent

• Capitalize on traditional UI design lore

• Know your UI design methodologies

• Know the tricks of the trade

Traditional User Interface Design Lore

• What it brings to agent interface design

• We know a lot, and we know it works

• Know your user, the task, and the context

• Know how to do Rapid prototyping

• Practice iterative design

• User testing is the way

UI Design Methodologies: A Worldwind Tour

• “Vanilla” User-Centered Design

• Other flavors– Participatory Design

– Contextual Design

• Development models: Waterfall vs Spiral

Development models, take 1: The Waterfall Model

Development models, take 2: The Spiral Model

Practical User Interface Development Tricks

• Using napkins to work out the design– An interface can be a sketch

– Interactive mock-ups

» The Wizard of Oz technique

» Chaffeured prototyping

» Faking all the way: Director, etc.

– Promise of prototype-cum-UI environments

» FaceSpan, et al

» Amulet, Visual Basic, etc.

• Diagramming to find the holes– Generalized Transition Diagrams GTDs (Olson)

– GOMS: Goals, Operators, Methods and Selection rules (Kieras and Paulsen)

Part I: User Interface Design for Software Agents

Part II: Personification in the interface

Part III: Complaints from the User Interface Community

The Personification Issue

• A Provisional Definition

• What animism implies to users

• What humans bring to the table

• Forms it takes

• Costs and benefits

A Provisional Definition: Animism

• Humans, animals, cartoons

• Faces, voices, text

• “Personification” doesn’t apply to dogs

“Animacy, then, is more properly understood as a framework or way of thinking...Animate thinking stems from a basic need to explain happenings and tell simple stories about them, and a need to fit things into roles in the stories as actors and objects of action”

- E. F. Keller “Reflections on Gender and Science”

What an Animistic UI implies

• Autonomy – Actions are initiated without external physical cause

• Purposefulness – Actions are undertaken to achieve a goal

• Reactivity– Responsive and adaptive to changes in the environment

adapted from Traver96

Hey, It’s Got Personality Already

• “The Media Equation”

• Humans have personality types

• Humans have a preference for change– “I’d rather convert you than preach to the converted”

• A heirarchy of relationships– One Up: “I’ll tell you what to do”

– One Down: “I’ll take care of this for you.”

– One Across: “Let’s work together, okay?”

Nass and Reeves, Stanford 1996

Forms Animism Can Take

• Modes– graphics

– language

– gender

– voice

• Complexity and the “realism continuum”

Benefits of Animism

• Consistent personality across software

• It adapts to me

• A perception of simplicity

• Comfortable relationship

Costs of Animism

• Overattribution of agent’s abilities

• User can misunderstand agent’s user model

• Threatens user’s comfort, sense of control

• Inefficiency of Interaction

• Distraction

• Devaluation of Human Interaction

Examples of Animism in the UI

• Knowledge Navigator– Jon Sculley, Apple 1988

– Emotional Distance

• PF Magic “Petz”– Growth and Development

– Emotional effect

– Distraction

– Limits of metaphor/character

• Microsoft Bob

Microsoft Bob - Main Screen

Microsoft Bob - Characters

Part I: User Interface Design for Software Agents

Part II: Personification in the interface

Part III: Complaints from the User Interface Community

The Issues from the UI Community

• Who’s Complaining – Ben Shneiderman, Jaron Lanier, among others

• The Great Debate:– Software as “tool” vs “agent”; Starfire demo

• Problems with “agent”

• Problems with “intelligent”

• Problems with animism & personification

• Look Ma, it’s them pesky AI folks again

Another Look at Agents

Sun Microsystem Bruce Tognazzini

• The *STARFIRE* demo

Another Look at Agents

• Starfire

• The interface is the thing

• Agents as tools embedded in the environment

• The only faces on the screen are people

• Control is never a point of contention

Problems With the Notion of “Agent”

• It can limit human volition

• It can dissolve responsibility

• Predictability and control issues

• How much can I trust this system?

• “It’s not my fault. My agent did it.”

• It’s the emperor’s new clothes

Problems With “Intelligent”

• An erronious label

• Bad for human-computer interaction

• Bad for interpersonal interaction

• At odds with what people actually want to do

More Complaints

• Problems with animism & personification– Animism as early phase of all technologies

– “Never believe that software models can represent people.”

• The same AI folks – with the same old, failed AI promises

– User interface design from the hip: Ignoring sound UI design practices like user testing

What We Saw

• User Interface Design for Software Agents

• The Personification Issue

• Complaints from the User-Interface Community

Conclusions

• “We simply don’t know enough about how people react to agents.”– Thomas Erickson, Designing Agents as if People

Mattered, in press

• Good UI design principles apply to agents too– Many complaints are just about bad UI design

– Can be remedied by following user-centered design practices

• Trust is built through time and reputation

Conclusions, continued

• Animistic interfaces: handle with care– The jury’s still out

– Some basis exists; not clear we should encourage it

• UCD is not incompatible with the Media Lab Way– Innovation and deadlines don’t mitigate user-centered

philosophy

– User testing doesn’t mean focus groups

– Many principles are quick and easy to apply