agents and guis from task models
This work unifies two important threads of research in intelligent user interfaces which share the common element of explicit task modeling. On the one hand, longstanding research on task-centered GUI design (sometimes called model-based design) has explored the benefits of explicitly modeling the task to be performed by an interface and using this task model as an integral part of the interface design process. More recently, research on collaborative interface agents has shown how an explicit task model can be used to control the behavior of a software agent that helps a user perform tasks using a GUI. This paper describes a collection of tools we have implemented which generate both a GUI and a collaborative interface agent from the same task model. Our task-centered GUI design tool incorporates a number of novel features which help the designer to integrate the task model into the design process without being unduly distracted. Our implementation of collaborative interface agents is built on top of the COLLAGEN middleware for collaborative interface agents.
agent task task models model thread research intelligent user interface user interfaces sharing design model-base design integrability interface design design process process collaboration interface agent control behavior software agents help paper collect tools implementation design tool feature middleware model-based interface design