[Sigia-l] IA and the MS Office Paperclip

[Dan Saffer]

The moral of the Clippy story is that information poorly presented can 
be worse than no information at all.

There is a need for help content that is presented at the time help is 
needed, but the tone and character (ethos) of that help, especially 
when delivered by some sort of "smart" agent is crucial. Clippy at 
least shows us some things not to do.

Long aside: I once heard a talk by Caroline Miller, a professor at 
North Carolina State, on Ethos in HCI. She talked about agents being 
rhetorically different than "expert" systems in that users have a 
relationship with them. They need to focus on the establishment of 
trust and so explain their decisions and make those explanations 
credible. They have to be social and adaptable, communicating through 
elaborate interfaces, and they must have an ethos that offers empathy. 
Intelligent agents should be alive with pathos, not logos, winning 
favor and always looking for a response. They need to be friendly, 
familiar, and sympathetic. And, oddly enough, they should seek sympathy 
as well. Professor Miller called this "cyborg discourse" and it 
requires technique and strategy to design.


Dan


Dan Saffer
M. Design Candidate, Interaction Design
Carnegie Mellon University
http://www.odannyboy.com