Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Generating help for users of application software

  • Published:
User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Help for users of Information Processing Systems (IPSs) is typically based upon the presentation of pre-stored texts written by the system designers for predictable situations. Though advances in user interface technology have eased the process of requesting advice, current on-line help facilities remain tied to a back-end of canned answers, spooled onto users, screens to describe queried facilities.

This paper argues that the combination of a user's knowledge of an application and the particular states which a system can assume require different answers for the large number of possible situations. Thus, a marriage of techniques from the fields of text generation and Intelligent Help Systems research is needed to construct responses dynamically. Furthermore, it is claimed that the help texts should attempt to address not only the immediate needs of the user, but to facilitate learning of the system by incorporating a variety of educational techniques to specialise answers in given contexts.

A computational scheme for help text generation based on schema of rhetorical predicates is presented. Using knowledge of applications programs and their users, it is possible to provide a variety of answers in response to a number of questions. The approach uses object-oriented techniques to combine different information from a variety of sources in a flexible manner, yielding responses which are appropriate to the state of the IPS and to the user's level of knowledge.

Modifications to the scheme which resulted from its evaluation in the EUROHELP project are described, together with ongoing collaborative work and further research developments.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aaronson, A. and J.M. Carroll: 1987, ‘Intelligent Help in a One-Shot Dialog: A Protocol Study’, In J.M. Carroll and P.P. Tanner (eds.),Proceedings CHI+GI1987: Conference on Computers and Human Interaction and Graphics Interface, pp. 163–168. Elsevier.

  • Appelt, D.E.: 1985,Planning English Sentences. Series on Natural Language Processing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borgida, A., J. Mylopoulos, and H.K.T. Wong: 1984, Generalization/specialization as a basis for software specification. In M. L. Brodie, J. Mylopoulos, and J.W. Schmidt, editors,On Conceptual Modelling, pages 87–114. Springer-Verlag, 1984.

  • Breuker, J. (ed.): 1990,EUROHELP: Developing Intelligent Help Systems. IOS.

  • Carlson, L.: 1983,Dialogue Games: An Approach to Discourse Analysis, Volume 17 ofSynthese Language Library. D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, J.M. and J. McKendree: 1987, ‘Interface Design Issues for Advice-Giving Expert Systems’,Communications of the ACM 30(1), 14–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaffin, R. and D. J. Herrmann: 1988, ‘The Nature of Semantic Relations: A Comparison of Two Approaches’, In M.W. Evans, editor,Relational Models of the Lexicon: Representing Knowledge in Semantic Networks, Series on Natural Language Processing, pp. 289–334, Cambridge University Press.

  • Danlos, L.: 1987,The Linguistic Basis of Text Generation. Series on Natural Language Processing. Cambridge University Press.

  • Draper, S.W.: 1985, ‘The Nature of Expertise in Unix’, In B. Shackel (ed.),Proceedings of INTERACT ‘84, pp. 465–471, Amsterdam, Elsevier Science Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, N.: 1989, ‘Explanation and Dialogue’,Knowledge Engineering Review 4(3), 235–247.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gillmor, R., T. Shea, F. Campagnoni, K. Ehrlich, and M. Hardee: 1989, ‘Design of the Sun 386i Online Help System’,Sun Technology, pp. 68–76, Spring.

  • Hayes-Roth, F., P. Klahr, and D. Mostow: 1981, ‘Advice Taking and Knowledge Refinement: An Iterative View of Skill Acquisition’, In J.R. Anderson (ed.),Cognitive Skills and Their Acquisition, pp. 231–253, Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.

  • Hecking, M., C. Kemke, E. Nessen, D. Dengler, M. Gutmann, and G. Hector: 1988, ‘The Sinix Consultant-A Progress Report’, Technical report, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Saarbrucken, October.

  • Houghton, R.C.: 1984, ‘Online Help Systems: A Conspectus’,Communications of the ACM 27(10), 126–133, February.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hovy, E.H.: 1990, ‘Unresolved Issues in Paragraph Planning’, In R. Dale, C. Mellish, and M. Zock (eds.),Current Research in Natural Language Generation Academic Press.

  • Kakiuchi, T., K. Uehara, and J. Toyoda: 1986, ‘Plan-based Text Generation in an On-line Help System’, In E. Wada (ed.),Logic Programming'86: Proceedings of the Fifth Conference, pp. 1–11, Springer Verlag.

  • Levin, J.A. and J. A. Moore: 1977, ‘Dialogue Games: Metacommunication Structures for Natural Language Interaction’,Cognitive Science 1, 395–420.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCoy, K.F.: 1988, ‘Reasoning on a Highlighted User Model to Respond to Misconceptions’,Computational Linguistics 14(3), 52–63, September.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDonald, D.D. and J.D. Pustejovsky: 1985, ‘Description-directed Natural Language Generation ’, InProceedings of ‘the Ninth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI'85), pp. 799–805, Los Angeles, August

  • McKeown, K., M. Elhadad, Y. Fukumoto, J. Lim, C. Lombardi, J. Robin, and F. Smadja: 1990, ‘Natural Language Generation in COMET’, In R. Dale, C. Mellish, and M. Zock (eds.),Current Research in Natural Language Generation. Academic Press.

  • McKeown, K.R.: 1985,Text Generation. Series on Natural Language Processing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKeown, K.R. and W.R. Swartout: 1988, ‘State of the Art: Language Generation and Explanation’, In M. Zock and G. Sabah (eds.),Advances in Natural Language Generation, volume 1, pp. 1–51, Ablex Publishing.

  • Mellish, C. and R. Evans: 1989, ‘Natural Language Generation from Plans’,Computational Linguistics 14(5), 233–249, December.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meteer, M.W., D.D. McDonald, S.D. Anderson, D. Forster, L.S. Gay, A.K. Huettner, and P. Sibun: 1987, ‘Mumble-86: Design and Implementation’, Technical Report COINS 87–87, Computer and Information Science, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore, J.D. and W.R. Swartout: 1989, ‘A Reactive Approach to Explanation’, InProceedings of the Eleventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI'89), pp. 1504–1510.

  • Moran, T.P.: 1981, ‘The Command Language Grammar: A Representation for the User Interface of Interactive Computer Systems’,International Journal of Man Machine Studies (15), 3–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Myers, B.A., D. Giuse, R.B. Dannenberg, B. Vander Zanden, D. Kosbie, E. Pervin, A. Mickish, and P. Marchai: 1990, ‘Garnet: Comprehensive Support for Graphical, Highly-Interactive User Interfaces’,IEEE Computer 23(11), 71–85, November.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neelakendan, H., M.M. Matthews, and G. Biswas: 1987, ‘An Intelligent Assistance System in the Unix Domain’, InProceedings of the Third Annual Expert Systems in Government Conference, pp. 55–64. Computer Science Press.

  • Norman, D.A.: 1984, ‘Four Stages of User Activities’, In B. Shackel (ed.),Proceedings of INTERACT'84, pp. 507–511.

  • Paris, C.L.: 1988, ‘Tailoring Object Descriptions to a User's Level of Expertise’,Computational Linguistics 14(3), 64–78, September.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, C.D.: 1989,Xman-an X Window System manual browsing tool. MITX Consortium.

  • Pilkington, R.: 1987,Knowledge-Based Systems in Topic Learning. PhD thesis, Computer Based Learning Unit, School of Education, Leeds University.

  • Quilici, A.E., M.G. Dyer, and M. Flowers: 1986, ‘AQUA: An Intelligent Unix Advisor’, InProceedings of the Seventh European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI'86), pp. 33–38.

  • Reichman-Adar, R.: 1984, ‘Extended Person-machine Interface’,Artificial Intelligence 22, 157–218.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, J., T. Mauro, and K. Heibig: 1988, ‘A Guide to Andrew, X Versionll, Release 3’, Technical report, Information Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Self, J.A.: 1988, ‘Bypassing the Intractable Problem of Student Modelling’, InProceedings of Intelligent Tutoring Systems 88.

  • Smith, M.J., M.W. Reeder, C. Duursma, C. Tattersall, A.J. Cole, F. Ravn, and B. Koza: 1989, ‘Application Model Definition’, Technical Report ICL-ULE/EUROHELP/041, ICL, Knowledge Engineering Business Centre, Manchester, July.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tattersall, C.: 1990,Question-Answering and Explanation in On-Line Help Systems: a Knowledge-Based Approach. PhD thesis, Computer Based Learning Unit, School of Education, Leeds University.

  • Thompson, H.: ‘Strategy and Tactics: A Model for Language Production’, In W.A. Beach, S.E. Fox, and S. Philsoph (eds.),Papers from the Thirteenth Regional Meeting Chicago Linguistics Society, pp. 651–668. Chicago Linguistics Society, April.

  • Wagnitz, M: 1989,xmail-XI1 visual interface to the mail program. National Semiconductor Corporation.

  • Wilensky, R., D.N. Chin, M. Luria, J. Martin, J. Mayfield, and D. Wu: 1988, ‘The Berkeley Unix Consultant Project’,Computational Linguistics 14(4), 35–84, December.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolz, U.: 1989, ‘Tutoring That Responds to User Questions and Provides Enrichment’, InProceedings of the Fourth International Conference on AI and Education (MED 4), pp. 330–337, IOS.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Based Learning Unit, Leeds University, UK

    C. Tattersall

Authors
  1. C. Tattersall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

Colin Tattersall is a Research Fellow at the Computer Based Learning Unit. He completed his B. Sc. in Computational Studies at Leeds University in 1986, then joined the CBL Unit on an ESRC studentship linked to ESPRIT project P280 EUROHELP. Within the project, his work related to knowledge representation and text generation for intelligent help systems, leading to a Ph.D. in mid-1990 entitled “Question-answering and explanation in online help systems: a knowledge-based approach”. The work was followed by a year-long fellowship, funded by ICL, to investigate the commercial viability of advanced help system architectures. This paper reflects results and experience gained from both research and development of intelligent help systems.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Tattersall, C. Generating help for users of application software. User Model User-Adap Inter 2, 211–248 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01104705

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01104705

Key words

Search

Navigation