Dialog design How do we communicate with computers?

Agenda Exam review Project Part 3 Presentation: Moo Nam Dialogue styles Command line WIMP Direct Manipulation Speech/Natural Language Pen/Mobile Device

Exam review Top score: 97 Average: 79 Median: 86

Project Part 3 Due in 3 weeks Choose one design Go more in depth on details Create testable prototype(s) Demo for me Create evaluation plan Discuss in class on 3/30

Dialog Design How does a user interact with the interface?

Dialog Styles 1. Command languages 2. WIMP - Window, Icon, Menu, Pointer 3. Direct manipulation 4. Speech/Natural language 5. Pen & PDA

General Issues in Choosing Dialogue Style Who is in control - user or computer Initial training required Learning time to become proficient Speed of use Generality/flexibility/power Special skills - typing Gulf of evaluation / gulf of execution Screen space required Computational resources required

Command Languages Earliest UI interaction paradigm Examples: MS-DOS shell, UNIX, Linux Little or nothing is visible so… Work primarily by recall, not recognition Heavy memory load Poor choice for novices but...

CL Advantages Advantages for experts Speed, conciseness % ls (hard to beat) Can express actions beyond a limited set Flags, piping one command to another Repetition, extensibility Scripting, macros Easier implementation, less overhead Power Abstraction, wild cards

CL Dangers With added power, comes added responsibility and danger UNIX % rm -r * Deletes every file that you have, and you can’t get them back

CL Design Goals Consistency Have options and arguments expressed the same way everywhere Good naming and abbreviations UNIX fails here because commands were developed by lots of different people at different organizations No guidelines provided

General Issues - CL Who is in control - user or computer Initial training required Learning time to become proficient Speed of use Generality/flexibility/power Special skills - typing Gulf of evaluation / gulf of execution Screen space required Computational resources required

Direct Manipulation Definition: 1) Continuous visibility of the objects and actions of interest 2) Rapid, reversible, incremental actions whose effect is immediately noticeable 3) Replacement of command language syntax by direct manipulation of object of interest (physical actions, buttons, etc.) Shneiderman ‘82

DM Essence Representation of reality that can be manipulated The user is able to apply intellect directly to the task The tool itself seems to disappear Related to Directness Engagement

Direct Manipulation See pgs in DFAB Examples WYSIWYG editors and word processors VISICALC - 1 st electronic spreadsheet CAD Desktop metaphor Video games

Example: Homefinder

DM Issues Advantages Flexible, easily reversible actions helps reduce anxiety in users WYSIWYG provides context & instant visual feedback Exploits human use of visual spatial cues Limits types of errors that can be made Disadvantages visual representation n ot self-explanatory Mouse ops may be slower than typing Not good at: Repetition History keeping Certain tasks (Change all italics to bold) Abstract elements (variables)

General Issues - DM Who is in control - user or computer Initial training required Learning time to become proficient Speed of use Generality/flexibility/power Special skills - typing Gulf of evaluation / gulf of execution Screen space required Computational resources required

WIMP Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers Focus: Menus, Buttons, Forms Predominant interface paradigm now (with some direct manipulation added) Advantages: ?

Menus Advantages: 1 keystroke or mouse operation vs. many No memorization of commands Limited input set Disadvantages: Less direct user control - have to find correct menu / menu item Not so readily extensible Slower than keyboarding for experienced users, at least without accelerators

Menu Items Organization strategies Create groups of logically similar items Cover all possibilities Ensure that items are non-overlapping Keep wording concise, understandable

A Good Example Logical grouping Visual separation of groups Disabled items “grayed out” Shortcuts shown … indicates leads to dialogue

Presentation Sequence Forms, dialogue boxes, menus Use natural if available Time e.g. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Numeric ordering e.g. Point sizes for font Other possibilities: Alphabetical Group related items Frequently used first Most important first

Other WIMP issues Windows management How to locate, move, find Transfer information between Icons Need graphic design attention Toolbars

General Issues - WIMP Who is in control - user or computer Initial training required Learning time to become proficient Speed of use Generality/flexibility/power Special skills - typing Gulf of evaluation / gulf of execution Screen space required Computational resources required

Natural input Universal design Take advantage of familiarity, existing knowledge Alternative input & output Multi-modal interfaces Getting “off the desktop”

When to Use Speech Hands busy Mobility required Eyes occupied Conditions preclude use of keyboard Visual impairment Physical limitation

Speech Input Speaker recognition Tell which person it is (voice print) Monitoring, recording Speech recognition Identify words IBM ViaVoice, Dragon Dictate,... Natural language understanding

Recognition Dimensions Speaker dependent/independent Parametric patterns are sensitive to speaker With training (dependent) can get better Vocabulary Some have 50,000+ words Isolated word vs. continuous speech Continuous: where words stop & begin Typically a pattern match, no context used Did you vs. Didja

Recognition Example: My flight experience uh, I started off as a private pilot and then I spent 20 years flying as a navigator on C130s in the air force and I currently fly as a first officer on the SAAB 340 turboprop. my flight experience a and I started off as a private pilot and I spent 20 years flying is a navigator on C-130s in the Air Force and I currently fly as a first officer on the sound 340 turboprop.

And another example Here here's one of the thoughts I'd throw in on that. I'd agree with Howard that the combination of checklists and flows is the way way to manage things best. hair and here's one of the outside troodon and an eye to agree with power that the domination checklists and flows is the way that managed things best

Errors Systems make four types of errors: Substitution - one for another Rejection - detected, but not recognized Insertion - added Deletion - not detected Problems with recovery

Natural Language Understanding Putting meaning to the words Input might be spoken or typed Holy grail of Artificial Intelligence problems

Eliza - a “Faked” Understanding Person : Men are all alike. ELIZA : In what way? Person : They're always bugging us about something or other. ELIZA : Can you think of a specific example? Person : Well, my boyfriend made me come here. ELIZA : Your boyfriend made you come here? Person : He says I'm depressed much of the time. ELIZA : I am sorry to hear that you are depressed. Person : It's true. I am unhappy. ELIZA : Do you think coming here will help you not to be unhappy? Person : I need some help, that much seems certain. ELIZA : What would it mean to you if you got some help? Person : Perhaps I could learn to get along with my mother. ELIZA : Tell me more about your family Weizenbaum, J., "ELIZA -- A computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine", Communications of the ACM 9(1):36-45, 1966

NL Factors/Terms Syntactic Grammar or structure Prosodic Inflection, stress, pitch, timing Pragmatic Situated context of utterance, location, time Semantic Meaning of words

SR/NLU Issues Advantages Easy to learn and remember Powerful Fast, efficient (not always) Little screen real estate Disadvantages Assumes domain knowledge Doesn’t work well enough yet Requires confirmation And recognition will always be error-prone Expensive to implement Unrealistic expectations can generate mistrust

Speech Output Tradeoffs in speed, naturalness and understandability Male or female voice? Technical issues (freq. response of phone) User preference (depends on the application) Rate of speech Technically up to 550 wpm! Depends on listener Synthesized or Pre-recorded? Synthesized: Better coverage, flexibility Recorded: Better quality, acceptance

Speech Output Synthesis Quality depends on software ($$) Influence of vocabulary and phrase choices Recorded segments Store tones, then put them together The transitions are difficult (e.g., numbers)

Designing Speech Interaction Constrain vocabulary Limit valid commands Structure questions wisely (Yes/No) Manage the interaction Examples? Slow speech rate, but concise phrases Design for failsafe error recovery Visual record of input/output Design for the user – Wizard of Oz

Speech Tools/Toolkits Java Speech SDK FreeTTS IBM JavaBeans for speech Microsoft speech SDK (Visual Basic, etc.) OS capabilities (speech recognition and synthesis built in to OS) (TextEdit) VoiceXML

General Issues – Speech/NL Who is in control - user or computer Initial training required Learning time to become proficient Speed of use Generality/flexibility/power Special skills - typing Gulf of evaluation / gulf of execution Screen space required Computational resources required

Non-speech audio Good for indicating changes, since we ignore continuous sounds Traditionally used for warnings, alarms or status information Provides secondary representation Supports visual interface Provides information that helps reduce error Tradeoff in using natural (real) sounds vs. synthesized noises.

Non-speech audio examples Error ding Info beep arriving ding Recycle Battery critical Logoff Logon Others?

Pen & Mobile dialog Stylus or finger Tradeoffs of each? Pen as a standard mouse (doubleclick?) Variety of platforms Desktop touch screens or input pads (Wacom) Tablet PCs Handheld and Mobile devices Electronic whiteboards Platforms often involve variety of size and other constraints

Mobile devices More common as more platforms available PDA Cell phone Ultra mobile tablets Smaller display (160x160), (320x240) Few buttons, different interactions Free-form ink Soft keyboard Numeric keyboard => text Stroke recognition Hand printing / writing recognition

Ultra-Mobile PC (Samsung) Palm Z22 handheld

Soft Keyboards Common on PDAs and mobile devices Tap on buttons on screen

Soft Keyboard Presents a small diagram of keyboard You click on buttons/keys with pen QWERTY vs. alphabetical Tradeoffs? Alternatives?

Numeric Keypad -T9 Tegic Communications developed You press out letters of your word, it matches the most likely word, then gives optional choices Faster than multiple presses per key Used in mobile phones

Cirrin - Stroke Recognition Developed by Jen Mankoff (GT -> Berkeley CS Faculty -> CMU CS Faculty) Word-level unistroke technique UIST ‘98 paper Use stylus to go from one letter to the next ->

Quikwriting - Stroke Recogntion Developed by Ken Perlin

Quikwriting Example pl e Said to be as fast as graffiti, but have to learn more

Hand Printing / Writing Recognition Recognizing letters and numbers and special symbols Lots of systems (commercial too) English, kanji, etc. Not perfect, but people aren’t either! People - 96% handprinted single characters Computer - >97% is really good OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Recognition Issues Boxed vs. Free-Form input Sometimes encounter boxes on forms Printed vs. Cursive Cursive is much more difficult Letters vs. Words Cursive is easier to do in words vs individual letters, as words create more context Usually requires existence of a dictionary Real-time vs. off-line

Special Alphabets Graffiti - Unistroke alphabet on Palm PDA What are your experiences with Graffiti? Other alphabets or purposes Gestures for commands

Pen Gesture Commands -Might mean delete -Insert -Paragraph Define a series of (hopefully) simple drawing gestures that mean different commands in a system

Pen Use Modes Often, want a mix of free-form drawing and special commands How does user switch modes? Mode icon on screen Button on pen Button on device

Error Correction Having to correct errors can slow input tremendously Strategies Erase and try again (repetition) When uncertain, system shows list of best guesses (n-best list) Others??

Free-form Ink Ink is the data, take as is Human is responsible for understanding and interpretation Often time-stamped Applications Signature verification Notetaking Electronic whiteboards Sketching

Electronic whiteboards Smartboard and Mimio Can integrate with projection Large surface to interact with Issues?

Real paper Anoto digital paper and pen technology ( Issues? Logitech io Digital Writing System

General Issues – Pen input Who is in control - user or computer Initial training required Learning time to become proficient Speed of use Generality/flexibility/power Special skills - typing Gulf of evaluation / gulf of execution Screen space required Computational resources required

Other interesting interactions Gesture input Specialized hardware, or tracking 3D interaction Stereoscopic displays Virtual reality Immersive displays such as glasses, caves Augmented reality Head trackers and vision based tracking

What’s coming up Upcoming related topics Multimodal UIs: Ted 3D user interfaces: Amy Conversational agents: Evan Next week: evaluation