From: Melissa Kay House

Subject: Notes from Monday 11/7/94

Sanderson and Treu
Adaptive User Interface Design and Its Dependance on Structure
presented by Senis B.

Questions:
1. Is NChime adaptive or adaptible? Why?
2. Are there any adaptive or adaptible systems that comsider the computer
as the "object" - Are any traditional systems in this category?
3. User awareness of expert system: is it nevessary that the user doesn't
need to know its existence?
4. Is it possible that an adaptive or adaptivle system be less dependent on
structure?

Discussion:
-There is a lot of structure, but the authors don't know how it's implemented
        -it's only in the design aspect
-Can it be used for other systems too, or can it only be used for this area?
        -the authors went through a lot of work to do a simple system
                -this is asking the designers to do a lot of work for something
                 simple
                -this could be a problem
        -having structure would make the system easier to expand after the fact
                -make it more modular and therefore easier to modify

1. Adaptive or adaptible?
        -when does the decision to adapt have to be made?
        -adaptive - advise the user on what to do or not to do
        -adaptibility - user can adapt the system with other tools
        -what can you make adaptible according to the overall system design?
                -some things the system depends on can't be changed

2. Traditional systems all have the computer as the object
        -"the adaptive user would be completely transparent to the computer" :)
        -to what degree is it adaptivle?  - reflects efficiency / use of the
         medium to begin with
        -how do the user and system work together to solve a problem?
                -the problem is that you can't know what's best for each user
                -can't know when to start to adapt, it depends on the system
        -idea that it makes the user explicitly communicate the task goal to the
         system
                -this is difficult to do with unix
                -having to state the goal and being guided may or may not
                 actually be more efficient
                -would you get more efficiency in a highly structured task
                 system?
        -directed toward novice users, which is good but how do they know how to
         communicate the task to the system?
                -particularly dificult if the user is doing something the system
                 hasn't seen before
        -the environment is very static, they know what the user will do - is
         this true with real systems?

3. User awareness
        -should this be done so the user is unaware - ie. the user isn't
         distracted from the task by the system
                -system changes without telling the user
                -adding another element that the user must interact with may
                 make the system more intimidating to learn
        -the system should not be intrusive while it adapts

4. Possible to be less dependent on structure?
        -tradeoff mentioned in question one with the necessary design time
        -the designers may not have time to implement the appropriate structure
        -the authors say that if you put more structure in the system it's
         easier, but they haven't proven this

******************************************************************************
Melissa Kay House                                  |   This life is a test.
Graduate Student, Information Design and Technology|If this had been an actual
Georgia Institute of Technology                    | life, you would receive
gt0959a@prism.gatech.edu                           | instructions on where to
                                                   |    go and what to do.