(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004)
Catrambone, Richard; Stasko, John T.; Xiao, Jun
We studied the role of the competence of a user interface agent/assistant that helped users to learn and use a new text editor. Participants in the study made a set of prescribed changes to a document via the editor with the aid of one of four interface agents. Participants could ask questions out loud to the agent and the agent would respond using a synthesized voice; the agent would also make proactive suggestions. The agents varied in the quality of responses and suggestions made. One group of participants were provided with a help screen as well as the agent. We focused on assessing the relation between users' objective performance, interaction style, and subjective experience. Results revealed that the perceived utility of the agent was influenced by the types of errors made by the agent, while participants' subjective impressions of the agent related to the perceptions of its representation. In addition, allowing participants to choose their preferred assistance style(s) (agent vs. online-help) improved objective performance. We correlate quantitative findings with qualitative interview data and discuss implications for the design and the implementation of systems with interface agents.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2003)
Xiao, Jun; Catrambone, Richard; Stasko, John T.
This research examined the ability of an anthropomorphic interface assistant to help people learn and use an unfamiliar text-editing tool, with a specific focus on assessing proactive a ssistant behavior. Participants in the study were introduced to a text editing system that used keypress c ombinations for invoking the different editing operations. Participants then were directed to make a set of pre scribed changes to a document with the aid either of a paper manual, an interface assistant that would hear and respond to questions orally, or an assistant that responded to questions and additionally made proactive sug gestions. Anecdotal evidence suggested that proactive assistant behavior would not enhance performance and would be viewed as intrusive. Our results showed that all three conditions performed similarly on objecti ve editing performance (completion time, commands issued, and command recall), while the participants in the l atter two conditions strongly felt that the assistant's help was valuable.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2002)
Catrambone, Richard; Stasko, John T.; Xiao, Jun
Research on anthropomorphic agent interfaces has produced widely divergent results. We suggest that this is due to insufficient consideration of key factors that influence the perception and effectiveness of agent-based interfaces. Thus, we propose a framework for studying anthropomorphic agents that can systematize the research. The framework emphasizes features of the agent, the user, and the task the user is performing. Our initial experiment within this framework manipulated the agent's appearance (lifelike versus iconic) and the nature of the user's task (carrying out procedures versus providing opinions). We found that the perception of the agent was strongly influenced by the task while features of the agent that we manipulated had little effect.