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Minimalist User Modelling in a Complex Commercial Software System

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Abstract

While user modelling has produced many research-based systems, comparatively little progress has been made in the development of user modelling components for commercial software systems. The development of minimalist user modelling components which are simplified to provide “just enough” assistance to a user through a pragmatic adaptive user interface is seen by many as an important step toward this goal. This paper describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of a minimalist user modelling component for the Tax and Investment Management Strategizer (TIMS), a complex commercial software system for financial management. This user modelling component manages several levels of adaptations designed to assist novice users in dealing with the complexity of this software package. Important issues and considerations for the development of user modelling components for commercial software systems and the evaluation of such systems in commercial settings are also discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Manitoba, Canada

    Linda Strachan & John Anderson

  2. Emerging Information Systems Inc., Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

    Murray Sneesby & Mark Evans

Authors
  1. Linda Strachan
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  2. John Anderson
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  3. Murray Sneesby
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  4. Mark Evans
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Strachan, L., Anderson, J., Sneesby, M. et al. Minimalist User Modelling in a Complex Commercial Software System. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction 10, 109–146 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026553509852

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