[Sigia-l] IA and the MS Office Paperclip

[Andrew Boyd]

Hi Joe,

what is really interesting is that it has given embedded 
context-sensitive help systems such a bad name... "You mean, it works 
like that $#%^& paperclip in office?".

Helpful: not much, really

Unhelpful:
- annoyingly pseudo-cheerful
- slow
- inappropriate linkages to help topics
- unexpected behaviour

That's about it for now. Expect emotional responses to the Office 
Assistant - there are several "Kill Clippy" sites out there :)

Cheers, Andrew

Joe Dombroski wrote:

> Hello,
>
> The seemingly simple Office Assistant (the paperclip "Clippy" 
> character in Microsoft Office who pops up to offer help), has 
> interesting connections to information architecture.
>
> The amazing aspect of the feature is its ability to infer goals and 
> model events based on categorizing user events with Bayesian 
> classification systems (see http://research.microsoft.com/adapt/ for 
> more information), but I found the implementation annoying as other 
> users noted in a study of Clippy: 
> http://xenon.stanford.edu/~lswartz/paperclip/ which also discusses how 
> labels (another IA connection) influence user reactions.
>
> As people who are interested in the way information is structured and 
> presented, though, what do you find helpful and/or unhelpful about the 
> Office Assistant?
>
> Thank you,
> Joe Dombroski
>
> PS. Since I noticed many people are regulars on the list and I've been 
> lurking for a few weeks now, I'll introduce myself briefly as an 
> undergraduate student at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.  
> I'm double majoring in linguistics and psychology.  Information 
> architecture is something of a hobby that might be put to use if I 
> decide to go into usability, product design, or a related field.  If 
> you've got any recommendations for someone interested in the field, 
> I'd  be grateful to hear them.
>
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Andrew Boyd 
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Daily Basis P/L
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Email andrew at dailybasis.com.au
or andrew_db at bigpond.com
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