Personalization for E-Commerce
Transcription
Personalization for E-Commerce
Personalization for E-Commerce Tutorial presented at UM 2001 Anthony Jameson German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) Saarbrücken, Germany jameson@dfki.de http://dfki.de/~jameson Table of Contents 3 Introduction What Is Personalization in General? Types of Systems Covered Emphasis in This Tutorial Availability of These Slides Recommending Products PersonaLogic PurchaseSource The FindMe Systems Casper Lifestyle Finder Amazon.com Recommendations Comparison Facilitating Navigation Clixsmart Navigator Adaptive Information Server Adaptive Web Sites Angara Converter 7d b-bot Comparison Allowing Configuration MyYahoo! InfoBeans Comparison Using Lifelike Characters The Notebook Expert Artificial Life The PPP Persona The MIAU Agents REA Comparison 5 5 6 7 8 9 9 12 24 34 38 41 45 53 53 55 62 67 75 84 87 87 99 107 109 109 120 130 137 146 152 5 Introduction 6 Introduction 5 What Is Personalization in General? Adaptability Adaptation Anthropomorphism Personalization can be seen as the union of three overlapping system properties Types of Systems Covered 6 1. Product recommendation systems 2. Systems that guide users to the appropriate pages in a hypertext system 3. Systems that users can configure to suit their own requirements and preferences 4. Lifelike characters 7 Introduction 8 7 Emphasis in This Tutorial Technology for personalization Personalized systems Enhanced user experience Increases in: Customer acquisition Cross−selling Up−selling Customer loyalty ... Availability of These Slides 8 • Several companies supplied information for this tutorial on the condition that it would be made available only to the tutorial participants • Accordingly, an electronic version of these slides cannot be made available via the World-Wide Web • For the same reason, the printed slides may be photocopied only on a small scale (e.g., for individual colleagues) • Those who require electronic versions of particular parts of the slides can contact the presenter or the companies in question 9 Recommending Products / PersonaLogic 10 Recommending Products http://www.personalogic.com. As of July, 2001, the system is no longer available at this URL. Specific parts of it are available − for example, at http://www.purina.personalogic.com, from which the following examples are taken. 9 Example Screens (1) At PersonaLogic, U can obtain recommendations about a broad range of "products" (including colleges, dogs, and political candidates) To get recommendations concerning dogs, U first answers questions about her evaluation criteria Example Screens (2) Whenever U visits the "YOUR RESULTS" page, S presents the products that score best according to the evaluation criteria that U has specified 10 11 Recommending Products / PersonaLogic Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) 11 For general treatments of MAUT, see von Winterfeldt, D., & Edwards, W. (1986). Decision analysis and behavioral research. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.; Clemen, R. T. (1996). Making hard decisions: An introduction to decision analysis. Pacific Grove, CA: Duxbury. 12 Role in personalized product presentation • Many (though not all) systems for personalized product presentation use some variant of MAUT • The particular way in which it is used can vary greatly Basic principles • Each object O has a number of attributes that are relevant to its evaluation by U • Each attribute has an importance weight for U • U could in principle assign to each attribute of O a value (e.g., on a scale from 0 to 10) O to U is the sum of the values of its attributes, weighted by the importances of the attributes • The overall value of • What • U wants is the object O with the highest overall value Note: "Price" is usually viewed as an attribute, usually one with a high importance weight PurchaseSource http://www.frictionless.com/. As of July, 2001, the demo that was used to make the following slides is no longer available. Introduction • Frictionless.com created a web-based system (S) called PurchaseSource • On-line vendors can use this system to help customers locate suitable products • What we will see on the following slides is a walkthrough of a demonstration of this system • What is of interest is the basic system itself, not the specific information that has been entered on the particular type of product that our hypothetical U is looking for (backpacks) 12 13 13 Recommending Products / PurchaseSource 14 Overview of Types of Sports Articles • U has already indicated that he is interested in sports articles • U now clicks on "Backpacks" under "Outdoors" Choosing a "Profile" 14 • By choosing the profile "Day Hiker", U allows S to make guesses about many of U’s preferences • U will now need to specify only the preferences that S has not guessed correctly 15 15 Recommending Products / PurchaseSource 16 Specifying Preferences • For each attribute, U can specify how important it is that the product should fall into the specified range • U can learn more about the attribute by clicking the "learn more" button • • For the attribute "Capacity", see the result on the slide after next U can also "edit" the range itself • Here, our U chooses to edit the range for "Capacity" by clicking on the first "Edit" button Editing the Range for an Attribute • Before editing the 16 range, our U chooses to "learn more" about the attribute "Capacity" 17 17 Recommending Products / PurchaseSource 18 Learning More About an Attribute • After reading this information, our U goes "back" to the previous screen U uses the right-hand pop-up menu to change the maximum capacity to 2,500 cu. in • There, 19 19 Recommending Products / PurchaseSource 20 Overview of the Recommended Products (1) • Each recommended product is summarized here in a single line Overview of the Recommended Products (2) • Our 20 U clicks on the light-colored bar for the last product listed ("Jansport Couloir") to find out more about the reasons for the recommendation 21 21 Recommending Products / PurchaseSource 22 Summary for a Single Product • This page refers to a single product, but it still doesn’t include all of the detailed considerations underlying S’s rating of this product U wants to know these details, so he clicks on "Details" • Our Details for a Single Product 22 U can see, for each attribute, how S • Here, rated this product with respect to this attribute • (Only the first part of the long screen is shown here) 23 23 Recommending Products / PurchaseSource 24 Comparison of Three Products • Later, our U chooses to request a comparison of three other backpacks, which were more highly rated • In each column of this screen, essentially the same information is presented as in the screen with details for a single product (see the previous slide) The FindMe Systems Burke, R. D., Hammond, K. J., & Young, B. C. (1997). The FindMe approach to assisted browsing. IEEE Expert, 12(4), 32−40. Burke, R. D. (2000). Knowledge-based recommender systems. Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. http://www.ics.uci.edu/~burke/research/cbr-ec.html Introduction 24 The FindMe family • Burke and his colleagues developed several related systems that are based on the "Find-Me" approach to recommendation • The basic principles are illustrated here with the restaurant recommendation system "Entree", which is available on the web Overview of Entree Specification of preferences • At the beginning of a session, U has two options: 1. U specifies her preferences by choosing a few properties of restaurants 2. U enters the name of some other restaurant that she knows (in Chicago or another city) which exemplifies her preferences Criticism of the initial results • S presents some restaurants that correspond to U’s specifications • U can then specify how the set of candidates can be improved 25 Recommending Products / The FindMe Systems The Entree-System is available under http://infolab.ils.nwu.edu/entree/pub/ 25 26 Entree: Examples (1) U specifies her interests Entree: Examples (2) S offers an initial result, further results, and an opportunity to criticize the results 26 27 27 Recommending Products / The FindMe Systems 28 Entree: Examples (3) U would prefer a similar restaurant with South American cuisine Entree: Examples (4) 28 Faced with this result, U clicks on the button "Creative" in order to find a similar but more creative restaurant 29 Recommending Products / The FindMe Systems 30 Entree: Examples (5) 29 By now the set of candidates has been reduced to a single restaurant Key Methods (1) 30 This example illustrates some of the methods that are applied in the FindMe approach: Retrieval by similarity 1. At first, U specifies either • An example product; or • A small set of attributes that correspond to various goals • Examples: "cuisine" = "French", "style" = "casual" 2. S orders all of the products in the database according to their similarity with the given example or attribute set • For each goal, a similarity metric has to be defined • For example, S needs to know how similar French and Japanese cuisine are • Defining these similarity metrics is one of the main tasks that has to be handled when a system like Entree is introduced in a new domain 31 Recommending Products / The FindMe Systems 32 Key Methods (2) 31 Different orderings of goals • When restaurants are sorted, the various goals are taken into account in a particular order • Example: • First they are sorted in terms of the similarity of their cuisine to U’s specification • Then restaurants that are equally similar with respect to cuisine are sorted with respect to "atmosphere" • Assumption here: cuisine is a more important criterion than atmosphere • Handling differences among users in the importance of goals • • In some of the FindMe systems, U can specify the relative importance of the goals herself She can choose from several prespecified "retrieval strategies" (e.g., "Money is no object") Key Methods (3) 32 Criticizing (tweaking) of the candidate restaurants by U U, S simply removes from the candidate set all restaurants that do not satisfy the specified constraint • After a critique by • Example: All restaurant that are not "more creative" than the most recently suggested one Use of familiar concepts • S makes it possible for U to employ concepts that are more familiar and less concrete than the attributes stored in the database (e.g., casual) 33 Recommending Products / The FindMe Systems 34 Key Methods (4) 33 Explaining conflicts among specifications • U may sometimes specify a combination of desired attributes that (almost) never occurs • Example from the automobile domain: powerful motor combined with low gas consumption • In this case • S calls attention to the conflict Note: This functionality is not realized in Entree, but it is realized in the related system Car Navigator (Burke et al., 1997) Casper Bradley, K., Rafter, R., & Smyth, B. (2000). Case-based user profiling for content personalisation. In P. Brusilovsky, O. Stock, & C. Strapparava (Eds.), Adaptive hypermedia and adaptive web-based systems: Proceedings of AH 2000 (pp. 62−72).Berlin: Springer. Case-Based Reasoning (1) 34 Casper: Personalization in a job finding system • Underlying retrieval system: JobFinder, an Irish recruitment web site • JobFinder provides conventional search-engine functionality over a database of job offers • Limitation: • U’s search query seldom reflects all of her actual criteria U ratings of jobs previously retrieved by JobFinder represent an additional source of information on U’s needs • These previous "cases" are used to filter further cases retrieved by the system 35 Figure 1 of Bradley et al. (2000) 35 Recommending Products / Casper Case-Based Reasoning (2) Overview of the two-stage retrieval process in Casper Case-Based Reasoning (3) Figure 3 of Bradley et al. (2000) 36 S’s criteria for assessing the similarity between two cases takes into account the domain-specific significance of the various attributes 36 37 Recommending Products / Casper 38 Case-Based Reasoning (4) 37 B G G G B B ? B G G B B Bad G G Good Jobs ? Candidate Job Figure 4 of Bradley et al. (2000) Procedure • The relevance of a new job offer is predicted on the basis of the ratings of the k (here: 5) most similar previous cases ("nearest neighbors") • Each of these previous ratings is weighted by the similarity of the case to the current job offer Evaluation results (summary) • About 70% correct classifications, using for each 57 job offers previously rated by that U U a case base of Lifestyle Finder The Lifestyle Finder was freely available on the web long enough to collect data from 20,000 users, but it is no longer available. Further information is given in the section "Inference: Data-Based". This screen shot is Figure 3 of: Krulwich, B. (1997). Lifestyle Finder: Intelligent user profiling using large-scale demographic data. AI Magazine, 18(2), 37−45. Elicitation of Demographic Information 38 The Lifestyle Finder elicits demographic information in a playful fashion that does not require U to supply identifying information 93% of the users surveyed agreed that the Lifestyle Finder’s questions did not invade their privacy 39 The system recommends 15 web pages, of which 3 are chosen at random for evaluation purposes. This slide shows part of Figure 4 of: Krulwich, B. (1997). Lifestyle Finder: Intelligent user profiling using large-scale demographic data. AI Magazine, 18(2), 37−45. 39 Recommending Products / Lifestyle Finder 40 Demographically Based Recommendation (1) After U has answered a few lifestyle-related questions (see the section "Properties"), the Lifestyle Finder’s presents its guess about the demographic cluster to which U belongs It then recommends web pages with information about products that should be of interest to persons within this cluster Demographically Based Recommendation (2) 40 Procedure of "demographic generalization" • The Lifestyle Finder assigns U to one or more of 62 demographic clusters from a commercial demographic system employed for consumer marketing • If U’s answers match more than one cluster, the predictions that are common to all matched clusters form the basis for recommendations for U • S may ask further questions that efficiently narrow down the set of possible clusters for U Evaluation • Users gave positive responses to more than 40% of the web pages recommended in this way, compared with about 30% of the randomly recommended pages • This level of accuracy is lower than that attainable through other methods • This method is accordingly proposed as a complement to methods that require more input from each user 41 Recommending Products / Amazon.com Recommendations 42 Amazon.com Recommendations Introduction 41 • Amazon.com is a pioneer in the area of commercial product recommendation • The recommendations are viewed as an additional service which is intended to stimulate further purchases once U has purchased one or more books • As we will see, the techniques employed are less well suited for cases in which a customer who has specific requirements asks for recommendations https://www.amazon.com/ Examples (1) A link to the recommendation page is present in the introductory page 42 43 Recommending Products / Amazon.com Recommendations 44 43 Examples (2) U sees this page once she has clicked on "See more Books recommendations" Examples (3) 44 On this page, U can influence the recommendations by explicitly rating the products she has bought so far (here: only 1 product) 45 Recommending Products / Comparison 46 Comparison 45 PersonaLogic Comparison of Approaches (1) PurchaseSource FindMe Casper Lifestyle Finder Amazon.com 1. What sort of explicit input does U have to supply? Importances of General buyer attributes category; Importances and desired levels of attributes Example or Normal queries; features of Ratings of desired product; offers Brief critiques of suggested products Answers to None; or ratings amusing of products questions about demographic characteristics 2. What is the minimum information that U must supply before receiving her first tailored recommendation? Importances for General buyer category one or more attributes Normal query Example or features of desired product Answers to the Purchase or questions rating of at least one product Comparison of Approaches (2) PersonaLogic PurchaseSource FindMe Casper 46 Lifestyle Finder Amazon.com 3. To what extent (and how) does S ensure that U has enough general knowledge about the type of product in question to be able to make a well-founded decision? Explanatory texts for individual attributes Explanatory texts for individual attributes Use of familiar concepts; sometimes explanation of conflicts Not at all Not at all Some informative texts on site 4. How expressive are the means that U has available for communicating her requirements to S? Very low Indirect and Extremely high Limited Quite high expressiveness, expressiveness, expressiveness expressiveness coarse within MAUT within MAUT framework framework Low expressiveness 47 47 PersonaLogic Recommending Products / Comparison 48 Comparison of Approaches (3) PurchaseSource FindMe Casper Lifestyle Finder Amazon.com 5. What properties of U are modeled? Importance weights of attributes Importance weights and desired values of attributes Desired properties of product; sometimes relative importance of attributes Membership in No modeling of Ratings of previous offers a demographic user properties group (no explicit modeling) 6. What procedure does S use to arrive at recommendations? MAUT MAUT Case-based Mainly computation of reasoning similarities Demographic marketing research conducted beforehand Collaborative filtering Comparison of Approaches (4) PersonaLogic PurchaseSource FindMe Casper 48 Lifestyle Finder Amazon.com 7. In what form does S give its recommendations? Presentations Overall evaluation and at different levels of detail description Brief textual description Ordering of offers Briefly annotated links to external web pages Brief description, perhaps supplemented with reviews 8. To what extent can U see that a recommended product is better for her than particular other products? Tabular comparisons Little support Tabular comparisons at different levels of detail Little support Little support Little support 49 49 PersonaLogic Recommending Products / Comparison 50 Comparison of Approaches (5) PurchaseSource FindMe Casper Lifestyle Finder Amazon.com 9. Does S adapt the way in which it presents individual products to U? No Presentation refers to U’s requirements No No No No 10. To what extent can U revise the specification of her requirements after seeing some recommendations? Possible but not Possible but not Specifically well supported well supported supported Through Virtually revised queries impossible To limited extent Comparison of Approaches (6) PersonaLogic PurchaseSource FindMe Casper 50 Lifestyle Finder Amazon.com 11. To what extent does the recommendation process correspond with U’s natural way of thinking? Well Well Well Well Poorly Well 12. To what extent can U understand the reasons why S made particular recommendations? Little support Good support Little support No support No support No support 51 51 PersonaLogic Recommending Products / Comparison 52 Comparison of Approaches (7) PurchaseSource FindMe Casper Lifestyle Finder Amazon.com 13. To what extent does S take into account the fact that the interests of U can vary from one situation and time to the next? Not at all Problem cannot Problem cannot Problem cannot Most recent arise arise arise cases could be given greater weight Only gradual adaptation possible 14. To what extent can S reuse what it has learned about U in connection with a particular recommendation process later, when making recommendations to U in another situation? Currently not supported, in principle possible Currently not supported, in principle possible Currently not supported, in principle possible Well Well Very well, for products of the same type Comparison of Approaches (8) PersonaLogic PurchaseSource FindMe Casper Lifestyle Finder Amazon.com 15. When S is set up for use with a new type of product, to what extent do the designers have to make use of knowledge about that type of product? A great deal A great deal A great deal A good deal To some extent Hardly any 52 53 Facilitating Navigation / Clixsmart Navigator 54 Facilitating Navigation Smyth, B. (2001). Clixsmart navigator: A briefing for mobile and wireless portal operators. Dublin: ChangingWorlds. White paper. 53 Reducing Click Distances: Before To access the movie listings of her local theater via a WAP portal, the U in this example must make 29 clicks, often scrolling in the process Reducing Click Distances: After After S has adapted the menu structure to U’s access patterns, only 2 clicks are required 54 55 Facilitating Navigation / Adaptive Information Server 56 Adaptive Information Server Background The demos shown during the tutorial are available from the company’s web site: http://www.adaptiveinfo.com. 55 • The firm AdaptiveInfo was founded recently as a spin-off from the University of California at Irvine • It’s technology is based largely on research by Daniel Billsus and Michael Pazzani • Representative articles: • Billsus, D., & Pazzani, M. J. (1999). A hybrid user model for news story classification. In J. Kay (Ed.), UM99, User modeling: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference (pp. 99−108).Vienna: Springer Wien New York. http://www.ics.uci.edu/~pazzani/Publications/Publications.html • Billsus, D., & Pazzani, M. J. (2000). User modeling for adaptive news access. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 10, 147−180. The slides in this section were adapted from slides supplied by Michael J. Pazzani. Adaptive Information Server: Overview • Automatically learns a profile of user interests through normal interaction • Prioritizes presentation of content and commerce opportunities • Proven to increase page views by over 40% • Designed for scalable data mining • Real time: personalization • Aggregated for marketing insight • Integrates with existing wireless platforms 56 57 Facilitating Navigation / Adaptive Information Server Adaptive News Server 57 Some of the technology underlying the Adaptive Information Server is described by: Billsus, D., & Pazzani, M. J. (2000). User modeling for adaptive news access. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 10, 147−180. 58 A B C The Adaptive News Server spontaneously adapts its selection of news items on the basis of the user’s reading behavior Adaptive Classified Server 58 The good news: • Individual classified ads fit on most cell phone screens The bad news: • There are 250,000 ads in a paper, but users won´t scan through 25 or press 25 keys to describe what they want • A newspaper costs $0.25 • The classified ad server must provide more benefits than a newspaper 59 59 Facilitating Navigation / Adaptive Information Server 60 Before Personalization After Personalization 60 61 61 Facilitating Navigation / Adaptive Information Server 62 Extra Functions With Phones Adaptive Web Sites Perkowitz, M., & Etzioni, O. (2000). Towards adaptive web sites: Conceptual framework and case study. Artificial Intelligence, 118, 245−275. Introduction and Overview (1) 62 Background • The "adaptive web sites" approach is being developed by Mike Perkowitz and Oren Etzioni at the University of Washington • The approach has attracted a good deal of attention, although apparently so far only a prototype implementation exists Overview of the method • The system analyses logs of the use of a given web site • S proposes new index pages, each of which contains a number of related links that are likely to be of interest to the same type of user 63 Facilitating Navigation / Adaptive Web Sites 64 Introduction and Overview (2) 63 4 Music Machines 2 Music Machines 1. Boss Dr-110 samples 2. Boss Dr-55 samples 3. Korg KPR-77 samples 4. Korg KR-55 samples 5. Linn LinnDrum samples 1. Boss Dr-110 samples 2. Boss Dr-55 samples 3. Korg KPR-77 samples 4. Korg KR-55 samples 5. Linn LinnDrum samples Music Machines 1. Boss Dr-110 samples 2. Boss Dr-55 samples 3. Korg KPR-77 samples 4. Korg KR-55 samples 5. Linn LinnDrum samples Music Machines Music Machines Music 1. Boss Dr-110 samples 2. Boss Dr-55 samples 3. Korg KPR-77 samples 4. Korg KR-55 samples Machines 5. Linn LinnDrum samples 1. Boss Dr-110 samples 2. Boss Dr-55 samples 3. Korg KPR-77 samples 4. Korg KR-55 samples 5. Linn LinnDrum samples 1. Boss Dr-110 samples 2. Boss Dr-55 samples 3. Korg KPR-77 samples 4. Korg KR-55 samples 5. Linn LinnDrum samples Music Machines Music Machines 1. Boss Dr-110 samples 2. Boss Dr-55 samples 3. Korg KPR-77 samples 4. Korg KR-55 samples 5. Linn LinnDrum samples 1. Boss Dr-110 samples 2. Boss Dr-55 samples 3. Korg KPR-77 samples 4. Korg KR-55 samples 5. Linn LinnDrum samples Music Machines 1. Boss Dr-110 samples 2. Boss Dr-55 samples 3. Korg KPR-77 samples 4. Korg KR-55 samples 5. Linn LinnDrum samples 1 3 5 Introduction and Overview (3) • IndexFinder generates a candidate index page • The human web master accepts or rejects the candidate page • If the page is accepted, IndexFinder creates a final version of the page and adds it to the web site • The web master specifies • the page’s title • where in the site it should be linked • Rejected pages are discarded 64 65 65 Facilitating Navigation / Adaptive Web Sites 66 The Basic Data Figure 1. Typical user access logs, these from a computer science Web site. Each entry corresponds to a single request to the server and includes originating machine, time, and URL requested. Note the series of accesses from each of two users (one from SFSU, one from UMN). 24hrlab-214.sfsu.edu - - [21/Nov/1996:00:01:05 -0800] "GET /home/jones/collectors.html HTTP/1.0" 200 13119 24hrlab-214.sfsu.edu - - [21/Now/1996:00:01:06 -0800] "GET /home/jones/madewithmac.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 855 24hrlab-214.sfsu.edu - - [21/Nov/1996:00:01:06 -0800] "GET /home/jones/gustop2.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 25460 x67-122.ejack.umn.edu - - [21/Nov/1996:00:01:08 -0800] "GET /home/rich/aircrafts.html HTTP/1.0" 404 617 x67-122.ejack.umn.edu - - [21/Nov/1996:00:01:08 -0800] "GET /general/info.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 331 203.147.0.10 - - [21/Nov/1996:00:01:09 -0800] "GET /home/smith/kitty.html HTTP/1.0" 200 5160 24hrlab-214.sfsu.edu - - [21/Nov/1996:00:01:10 -0800] "GET /home/jones/thumbnails/awing-bo.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 5117 • Typical user access logs, these from a computer science web site • Each entry corresponds to a single request to the server • It includes the originating machine, the time, and the URL requested • Note the series of accesses from each of two users (one from SFSU, one from UMN). Inner Workings of IndexFinder 66 IndexFinder consists of three basic modules: 1. The log processing module takes the web server access logs and computes how often pages co-occur in user visits 2. The cluster mining module takes this information and a graph of the web site and finds clusters of frequently co-occurring pages 3. The conceptual clustering module uses conceptual descriptions of the site s pages to convert these clusters into coherent concepts • These are output as candidate index pages and presented to the web master. 67 Facilitating Navigation / Angara Converter 68 Angara Converter Experience of the Unknown Visitor (1) The slides in this section are based on the "tour" offered at http://www.angara.com. 67 Experience of the Unknown Visitor (2) 68 • The Fashion Store highlights its most frequently purchased apparel • • • • • • • item on the home page, a men’s leather jacket Although this week’s featured item effectively draws men into the site, women must click through to specific departments before finding merchandise of personal interest This means conversion rates are not optimized The Fashion Store is experiencing the same phenomenon as most of the on-line industry: • The majority of browsers visit a home page and leave before going deeper into the site, or purchase product, because the home page information is targeted to only one audience Increasing the conversion rates for browsers to buyers will require targeted, relevant content Over 90% of visitors to Web sites are unknown Industry conversion rates for new visitors average between 1 and 2% Site abandonment rates are 85% at the home page 69 69 Facilitating Navigation / Angara Converter 70 Targeting Content: The Process (1) Targeting Content: The Process (2) 70 • The Fashion Store came to Angara for help to develop a strategy to increase their conversion rates while maintaining their uncluttered home page • We worked with them to understand key business drivers and, drawing on extensive segmentation expertise, helped develop a segmentation scheme for The Fashion Store’s site that ultimately raised conversion rates two-fold 71 71 Facilitating Navigation / Angara Converter 72 Targeting Content: The Results Now, unknown visitors to the Fashion Store site are presented a customized home page presenting targeted "Feature Items" based on their prospect category − defined by geographic and demographic variables such as age and gender. Measurement and Reporting of Results (1) 72 73 73 Facilitating Navigation / Angara Converter 74 Measurement and Reporting of Results (2) • Real-time access to reporting through a secure Website provides The Fashion Store with detailed information to illustrate the improvement in conversion rates of unknown visitors based on targeting • These reports provide the information necessary for The Fashion Store to quickly react to trends in customer behavior • Custom content can be frequently modified at The Fashion Store site in order to surface new offers, react to inventory changes, or address other changes in market conditions Calculating Return on Investment 74 75 Facilitating Navigation / 7d b-bot 76 7d b-bot Introduction Company URL: http://www.7d.net. The graphics in the following slides were supplied by Christoph Hölscher. 75 Background • 7d is a relatively new company, located in Hamburg, which is now introducing its first products The "b-bot" • We will look mainly at the system b-bot • The main function of this product − at least initially − is the recommendation of informative web pages within large web sites Overview of Recommendation Approaches (1) 76 • One of the distinguishing characteristics of 7d’s approach is shown in the following two graphics • Three different recommendation techniques are integrated, which are usually found in different systems: 1. Content-based recommendation 2. Behavior-based recommendation 3. Rule-based recommendation 77 77 Facilitating Navigation / 7d b-bot 78 Overview of Recommendation Approaches (2) Content-Based Recommendation Goal: Given a particular document, recommend similar documents 78 79 79 Facilitating Navigation / 7d b-bot 80 Behavior-Based Recommendation • In the example, U is assigned to the second (red) group on the basis of his page selections to date • Accordingly, S recommends pages that members of this group have visited and/or rated positively • Information about users consists mainly of page selections (as opposed to explicit ratings) URL of ATG: http://www.atg.com/ Rule-Based Recommendation This graphic indicates how rules are defined and applied in the b-bot 80 81 ATG’s Dynamo Personalization Server and two other personalization servers are analyzed in depth by: Fink, J., & Kobsa, A. (2000). A review and analysis of commercial user modeling servers for personalization on the world wide web. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, 10, 209−249. 81 Facilitating Navigation / 7d b-bot 82 Related Examples From ATG (1) Even without technical knowledge, an administrator can define user groups in terms of particular attributes Related Examples From ATG (2) In a similar way, the administrator can specify which objects within a given category should be shown to which groups 82 83 83 Facilitating Navigation / 7d b-bot 84 Support for Analysis and Evaluation As with many other personalization servers, a monitoring component allows various types of analysis of user’s behavior Comparison Comparison of Approaches (1) Clixsmart Navigator Adaptive Information Server Adaptive Web Sites Angara Converter 84 7d b-bot 1. Are adapations made to individual users or to groups? Individuals Individuals To date no tailoring; Groups development of tailoring for subgroups is planned Individuals and/or groups Generation of new index pages Changes in content, layout, and/or structure 2. What form do adaptations take? Rearrangement of menu hierarchies Rearrangement of options within menus Changes in content of pages 3. To what extent do the adaptations demand U’s attention? Unexpected changes might be distracting Unexpected changes might be distracting No attention demanded U may never notice adaptation (Depends on particular form of adaptation) 85 85 Clixsmart Navigator Facilitating Navigation / Comparison 86 Comparison of Approaches (2) Adaptive Information Server Adaptive Web Sites Angara Converter 7d b-bot 4. What sort of explicit input is U required to supply? None None No explicit input (later Some specification of version: perhaps a bit) demographic information In some cases: ratings, specification of demographic information 5. How much additional effort is required to administer the system? Little or no domain-specific administration Little or no domain-specific administration Collection and use of Webmaster postprocesses marketing data proposed index pages (Depends on parts of system used) 87 Allowing Configuration / MyYahoo! 88 Allowing Configuration Background 87 • Yahoo! was one of the first web portals to employ personalization methods • MyYahoo!, introduced in July, 1996, offers a rich variety of personalization options, which have been used by millions • The following slides http://www.yahoo.com 1. illustrate some of the ways in which MyYahoo! supports configuration by the user 2. summarize some lessons learned over the years by the designers of MyYahoo! A User’s Main Page 88 89 89 Allowing Configuration / MyYahoo! 90 Changing the Layout of a Page Changing the Content of a Page 90 91 91 Allowing Configuration / MyYahoo! 92 Changing the Content of a Module Adding a Page With One Click 92 After reaching an interesting page that is not currently included in his main page, the user can have it included simply by clicking on the "Add to MyYahoo!" button at the upper right 93 93 Allowing Configuration / MyYahoo! 94 Creating New Pages More ambitious users can create additional pages with collections of links The remaining slides in this section contain abbreviated excerpts from the following article: Manber, U., Patel, A., & Robison, J. (2000). Experience with personalization on Yahoo! Communications of the ACM, 43(8), 35−39. Configuration by the User 94 Personalization within individual modules • For example, users can choose which TV channels they want to include in their TV guide in addition to which local cable system they use Simplification of configuration actions • Modules can be selected from a (long) list, but can also be added by clicking on a button at the original content page • For example, every weather page (http://weather.yahoo.com) contains an "Add to My Yahoo!" button, which adds that page directly to the user’s My Yahoo! page • Also, each module on a My Yahoo! page has an edit and a remove button, allowing users to manipulate their pages directly, without ever needing to visit an edit/layout screen 95 Allowing Configuration / MyYahoo! 96 Adaptation by the System 95 Simple automatic adaptation of content • Example: a sports module that lists the teams in the user’s area after obtaining that information from U’s profile Adaptation of search results • In some cases we can complement the usual Web search with direct, focused content that can sometimes be personalized • For example, if U searches for the name of a current movie, we point to Yahoo! movies, show an image from the movie, the cast, and a pointer to a page with current showtimes • If U looked at the showtimes page previously and entered a zip code, that page is automatically customized to show the movie theaters near U • With one click after searching for a movie name, showtimes in U’s area U can see the Predictability as a Paramount Goal 96 • Most users expect to have at least an intuitive notion of what is given to them, and they expect to see the same behavior consistently • Being surprised is wonderful if it is entirely a positive surprise, but overall, being unpredictable is a negative • In particular, if people are not sure how things work, they are less prone to experimentation, because they are afraid of breaking something, or getting into a state that cannot be undone • In the case of news, for example, it is not clear that people want personal news; they often want the same news everyone else is getting • Getting local weather and news about a local sports team from zip codes is obvious • Getting news about cancer because the user read some medical journals in the past or searched for some medical terms can confuse the user at best, and at worst, can jeopardize user trust and raise serious privacy concerns in the user’s mind 97 97 Allowing Configuration / MyYahoo! Other Lessons From MyYahoo! • Most users take what is given to them and never customize • A great deal of effort should go into the default page • Power users will do amazing things; never underestimate them • People generally don’t understand the concept of customization 98 99 Allowing Configuration / InfoBeans 100 InfoBeans Background This and the following slides include abbreviated excerpts from: Bauer, M., & Dengler, D. (1999). InfoBeans: Configuration of personalized information assistants. In M. T. Maybury (Ed.), IUI99: International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces. New York: ACM. 99 Origins • InfoBeans was developed as a research prototype at DFKI • It offers users novel ways of configuring web pages • Some of its most important properties are illustrated in the example scenario shown on the following slides Concepts • An InfoBean is a configurable component that either • • encapsulates an existing information service; or specifies a process of information gathering and providing • It communicates with its environment through channels which pass information to or obtain data from other components • A collection of InfoBeans with a common user interface (a WWW document accessible by a standard Web browser) is called an InfoBox Example Scenario • 100 U is a business traveler who plans all her trips using a web-based interface to an international flight and hotel reservation system • She wants to have access to 1. detailed hotel information 2. a city map showing the location of the hotel 3. local weather data • She has found excellent web-based services for each of these features • Since similar information is required several times, she wants to be able to access only one page that provides her all relevant data quickly and automatically 101 Allowing Configuration / InfoBeans 102 Example of an InfoBox 101 Use of the InfoBox • The figure shows the resulting web page • When U now submits new hotel request information, the two InfoBeans considering weather and hotel information are immediately activated • The city map InfoBean starts working after the hotel information InfoBean has passed the street name into its output channel 102 103 Allowing Configuration / InfoBeans Configuration Procedure (1) 103 • 104 U loads the InfoBox start page and has access to 1. predefined InfoBeans 2. her own earlier specified InfoBoxes 3. InfoBeans and the option to add or change things • U decides to add an InfoBox called "Business Travel" • • Her browser jumps to a new nearly empty page containing only the InfoBean toolbar U defines a new InfoBean to encapsulate her usual travel reservation service • U is asked to draw a region on the still empty InfoBox page that should serve as the display area of this InfoBean • U specifies it as a pure encapsulation: • She simply enters the URL of the reservation service Configuration Procedure (2) 104 • The top left frame is the HTML form for requesting hotel information • The relevant data to be caught for delivery with respect to a current stay are 1. the name of the city 2. the hotel 3. the date • An InfoBean provides the ability to specify output channels easily via direct manipulation • In the case of defining the output channel City this means that the user selects the text input field named ’City’ • The InfoBean compiles this selection into the appropriate wrapper action in order to gather the specified information for delivery from the document Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen 105 Figure 5.7 from: Bauer, M., & Paul, G. (2001). Programming by demonstration for information agents. In H. Lieberman (Ed.), Your wish is my command: Programming by example (pp. 87−114). San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann. 105 Allowing Configuration / InfoBeans 106 Specifying More Complex Wrappers (1) Figure 5.7 An infobox like the one shown in the video A sample InfoBox. Specifying More Complex Wrappers (2) 106 • If time permits, a video will be shown that illustrates how a userS can specify a relatively difficult wrapper V:\002564\002564.VP Monday, December 18, 2000 12:42:22 PM R L 107 Allowing Configuration / Comparison 108 Comparison 107 Comparison of Approaches MyYahoo! InfoBeans 1. To what extent does U configure S? To a great extent, in part with especially convenient methods To a great extent, with intelligent support 2. To what extent does S configure itself spontaneously? In carefully selected cases S interprets U’s specifications in an intelligent way 109 Using Lifelike Characters / The Notebook Expert 110 Using Lifelike Characters Self-Description of Soliloquy (1) See the Corporate Fact Sheet, which is available via http://www.soliloquy.com. A similarly upbeat description of the firm is given in the following article: Lucente, M. (2000). Conversational interfaces for e-commerce applications. Communications of the ACM, 43(9), 59−61. 109 From the Corporate Fact Sheet "Soliloquy’s Dialogue Experts allow shoppers to interact with a website in the most natural and intuitive way: by using their own words" "And the Dialogue Experts’ knowledge about products is vast and available instantly, at any time" "Shoppers benefit from an enhanced user experience, better service and instant response time" "E-commerce websites benefit from higher sales, lower costs and invaluable market intelligence gained from the Dialogue Mining of shoppers’ conversations" Self-Description of Soliloquy (2) 110 Clients • The example dialogs with the Notebook Expert that are presented on the following slides were conducted at http://www.buy.com in December, 2000 • At that time, the Notebook Expert was also deployed at http://www.cnet.com • At both sites, the Notebook Expert has apparently since been taken out of the site • Similarly, other earlier clients of Soliloquy (Acer, Hewlett-Packard, and Hardware Street) have apparently discontinued use of the Notebook Expert 111 Using Lifelike Characters / The Notebook Expert 112 Examples of Possible Inputs 111 According to the web site, the Notebook Expert can deal with user inputs of the following types, among others: Statements about the planned use of the system Specification of preferences • I want a cheap notebook • I travel a lot • I plan to spend around • I need a laptop for school $2000 • Show me a notebook with a big screen • Show me a really fast laptop computer • I need a laptop for • • • • • accounting I do desktop publishing I trade in stocks, shares, options and futures I play games on the computer I need a laptop for graphics Show me one for spreadsheets Questions about concepts • What is USB? • What is a sound card? Dialog With the Notebook Expert (1) When U arrives at buy.com’s main notebook page, she can sees the link (on the right) to the page of the Notebook Expert 112 113 Using Lifelike Characters / The Notebook Expert 113 Dialog With the Notebook Expert (2) 114 Here, S starts by asking about the features that U would like In some cases, S starts with a question about how U intends to use the notebook (see the examples above) Dialog With the Notebook Expert (3) As we can see in the Quick Summary on the right, the vague specification "a lot of memory" (see the previous slide) was translated into the internal specification "> 64 Megabyte" 114 115 Using Lifelike Characters / The Notebook Expert 115 Dialog With the Notebook Expert (4) 116 The value "$3000" in the vague specification "I can spend about $3000" (previous slide) was interpreted not as an upper limit but as a desired price At any time, U can click on one of the hyperlinks in the window listing the notebooks to go to a web page about that specific notebook Dialog With the Notebook Expert (5) 116 Here we can see how S interpreted the vague specification "I don’t need more than 600 mhz" 117 Using Lifelike Characters / The Notebook Expert 117 Dialog With the Notebook Expert (6) 118 Here is an example of an attempt by S to answer a question by U about a particular concept (here: a particular manufacturer) Dialog With the Notebook Expert (7) Here is another example of S’s natural language understanding capabilities 118 119 Using Lifelike Characters / The Notebook Expert 119 Dialog With the Notebook Expert (8) 120 S is actually capable of processing some statements of this general sort E.g.,. "I go to conferences a lot" It would be unreasonable to expect S to be able to understand every possible statement of this type, since this capability would require a great deal of world knowledge Still, an interpretation problem should obviously not have such drastic consequences for the course of the dialog Artificial Life Bot on Artificial Life Main Page 120 121 Using Lifelike Characters / Artificial Life 122 Advertised Functions of Bots 121 From a product brief available from http://www.artificial-life.com. What Can a Bot Do for You? • Create individual customer profiles, which includes information customers are seeking • Provide detailed information to your customer that leads to sales • Facilitate customer awareness regarding products and services • Offer a patient and insightful presence which improves customer loyalty • Enhance the customer’s experience through productive, natural language conversations with your bot Example Dialog (1) 122 • The following slides show a dialog conducted with Luci • The bot’s output (small white letters) appears before the user types the next input into the white field above it • The gestures and varying facial expressions of the bot are not captured in these screen shots, because they appear only briefly before she returns to her standard pose and expression 123 123 Using Lifelike Characters / Artificial Life 124 Example Dialog (2) Example Dialog (3) 124 125 125 Using Lifelike Characters / Artificial Life 126 Example Dialog (4) Example Dialog (5) 126 127 127 Using Lifelike Characters / Artificial Life 128 Example Dialog (6) Example Dialog (7) Here, instead of typing a question, the user clicks on the link "Einstein ALife" 128 129 Using Lifelike Characters / Artificial Life 130 Example Dialog (8) 129 When the new page appears, Luci introduces its main character The PPP Persona More information on PPP, including the publications cited below, is available from http://www.dfki.de/imedia/ppp/. Overview of PPP 130 History • In a series of research projects at DFKI since 1989, techniques for automatic interactive presentations have been developed • In the project PPP ("Personalized Plan-Based Presenter"), one of the first "personas" was introduced in 1994 • This line of research is now being pursued in the project Miau (see below) Relationship to other personas • The PPP persona employs an especially large repertoire of behaviors • Its behaviors are planned for large presentation units • Since the focus is on presentation techniques, in most cases no language input of the user is processed 131 132 PPP: Example (1) André, E., Rist, T., & Müller, J. (1998). Guiding the user through dynamically generated hypermedia presentations with a life-like character. In J. Marks (Ed.), IUI98: International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (pp. 21−28).New York: ACM. 131 Using Lifelike Characters / The PPP Persona PPP: Example (2) • • • • • 132 U wants to spend holidays in Finland and is looking for a lakeside cottage S retrieves matching offers from the WWW, selects one of them, and presents it to U So that U can ask for more information, several items in the text are mouse−sensitive • Clicking on one of these items will lead to the insertion of a subscenario For instance, if the user clicks on the fishing item while the first cottage is presented, S will interrupt the current presentation and run a script with fishing possibilities • After that, S will continue with the main script and describe the next offer Note that following a navigation link does not cause paging, as it does with most conventional web presentations • Rather, a new presentation script for the agent along with the required textual and pictorial material is transferred to the client−sidepresentation runtime engine 133 133 Using Lifelike Characters / The PPP Persona 134 Self-Behaviors (1) Self-Behaviors (2) 134 • The persona’s primary purpose is to execute presentation acts • But its behavior is not only determined by the directives (i.e., presentation tasks) specified in the script • In addition, self−behaviors are indispensable in order to increase the Persona’s vividness and believability • Though it is certainly possible to include appropriate instructions directly in the presentation script, the approach here is to have them determined automatically 135 135 Using Lifelike Characters / The PPP Persona 136 Automatic Generation of Presentations • Since the available cottages and also their features may change at any time, it doesn’t make sense to rely on predesigned presentations • The generation process is therfore automated; it comprises the following tasks: 1. the design of a multimedia discourse structure reflecting how the single parts of a presentation are related to each other 2. the decomposition of the presentation into self−contained presentation units 3. the design of a navigation graph 4. the design of presentation scripts for each presentation unit See, among others, André, E., Rist, T., & Müller, J. (1999). Employing AI methods to control the behavior of animated interface agents. Applied Artificial Intelligence. Experimental Evaluation 136 Variants that were compared 1. Presentations with the persona, as was explained above 2. The same presentations without the visible persona, only with speech output and pointing with a cursor Main results 3. The presence of a persona invoked positive affective reactions in the users 4. The objectively measurable uptake of information was neither better nor worse with the persona • One possible explanation is that, in this study, the behavior of the persona conveyed little information beyond mere pointing and speaking Conclusion • An animated human-like figure can improve subjective acceptance − without distracting users from the content of the presentation 137 Using Lifelike Characters / The MIAU Agents 138 The MIAU Agents Overview of MIAU MIAU-Homepage: http://www.dfki.de/imedia/miau/. Publication: Elisabeth André, T. R., (2000). Presenting through performing: On the use of multiple lifelike characters in knowledge-based presentation systems. In H. Lieberman (Ed.), IUI 2000: International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (p. 1). New York: ACM. http://lieber.www.media.mit.edu/people/lieber/IUI/ 137 Basic ideas • The main concept in MIAU is that of a team of several agents that converse about a product that U is interested in Noninteractive MIAU • In the initial version, U does not communicate with the agents • Instead, U watches the agents converse • But U can set the parameters that determine the interaction Interactive MIAU • In a version currently under development (shown first in this tutorial, with a video) U can direct utterances to the agents Advantages claimed for the use of multiple agents • Different points of view and types of information can often be presented especially effectively by different agents • Repetitions of claims (e.g., about the advantages of a product) are less boring to U when they are generated by different agents Interactive MIAU: Examples (1) Robby (left) is helping out by answering the more technical questions; he has just reported the (high) gas consumption of the car 138 139 139 Using Lifelike Characters / The MIAU Agents 140 Interactive MIAU: Examples (2) Because of his personality parameters, Robby expresses agreement with U’s negative assessment Interactive MIAU: Examples (3) Merlin, who has the personality parameters of a normal salesman, expresses his dismay and disbelief through gestures and facial expressions 140 141 141 Using Lifelike Characters / The MIAU Agents 142 Setting the Presentation Parameters In this screen, U determines which agents are to appear and what general sort of behavior they are supposed to exhibit Noninteractive MIAU: Examples (1) 142 The potential customer, here played by the agent Genie (right) has just expressed some concerns about the car in question; the salesman Merlin (right) attempts to downplay these concerns 143 143 Using Lifelike Characters / The MIAU Agents 144 Noninteractive MIAU: Examples (2) The next two slides show an example of a dialog that was conducted with the following agents and parameters: Agent Role Personality Factors Interests Robby Seller Extraverted, agreeable Sportiness Peedy Buyer Introverted, disagreeable Environment Merlin Buyer Extraverted, agreeable Safety Noninteractive MIAU: Examples (3) 144 Agent Utterance Commentary Robby: Hello, I’m Robby. What can I do for you? We are interested in this car. This is a very sporty car. It can drive 100 miles per hour. Initiates the conversation, because of extraversion Answers the question, because of extraversion Emphasizes a value dimension that is important to U; mentions an attribute that has positive implications with respect to this dimension Asks questions because of extraversion; wants to know about airbags because this attribute concerns the dimension of safety, which is important to him Merlin: Robby: Merlin: Does it have airbags? Robby: Merlin: Sure. Excellent. Positive evaluation, because the agent is "agreeable"; strong formulation because of extraversion 145 Using Lifelike Characters / The MIAU Agents 146 Noninteractive MIAU: Examples (4) 145 Agent ... Peedy: Robby: Peedy: Robby: Utterance Commentary How much gas does it consume? It consumes 8 liters per 100 km. Isn’t that bad for the environment? Bad for the environment? It has a catalytic converter. It is made of recyclable material. Gas consumption has implications with respect to the environment Negative comment because the agent is "disagreeable" REA Image from http://justine.www.media.mit.edu/people/justine/. REA: An Embodied Information Presenter 146 147 Using Lifelike Characters / REA Example Dialog (1) 147 Cassell, J. (2001). Embodied conversational agents: Representation and intelligence in user interface. AI Magazine, 22. http://justine.www.media.mit.edu/people/justine/publications.html 148 • The following records an actual interaction between a user and Rea • Mike approaches the projection screen. Rea is currently turned side on and is gazing idly about • As Mike moves within range of the two cameras mounted above the screen, Rea turns to face him REA: Hello. How can I help you? MIKE: I’m looking to buy a place near MIT. Rea nods, indicating that she is following. REA: I have a house to show you. A picture of a house appears on-screen behind Rea who blinks and looks at the house and then at Mike. REA: It’s in Somerville. MIKE: Tell me about it. Rea looks up and away while she plans what to say Example Dialog (2) 148 REA: It’s big. Rea makes an expansive gesture with her hands. Mike brings his hands up as if he is about to speak and so Rea does not continue; instead waiting for him to speak. MIKE: Tell me more about it REA: Sure thing. It has a nice garden. Rea sketches a curved gesture with her hands indicating that the garden extends along two sides of the house MIKE: How far is it? REA: It is five minutes to the Porter Square T station. Rea makes it clear that it is five minutes on foot from the T station by making a walking gesture with her fingers MIKE: How big is the house? 149 Using Lifelike Characters / REA 150 Example Dialog (3) 149 REA: It has four bedrooms, three bathrooms. . . Mike interrupts Rea who stops speaking immediately. MIKE: Wait. Tell me, where is the master bedroom? REA: I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. What did you ask me? MIKE: Where is the master bedroom? REA: It’s upstairs. Rea points up MIKE: Where is the master bathroom? REA: It’s next to the bedroom. Rea brings her hands together to indicate the relationship between the bedroom and the bathroom. And the house tour continues ... Cassell, J., Bickmore, T., Vilhjálmsson, H., & Yan, H. (2000). More than just a pretty face: Affordances of embodiment. In H. Lieberman (Ed.), IUI 2000: International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (pp. 52−59). New York: ACM. http://lieber.www.media.mit.edu/people/lieber/IUI/ Functions of Nonverbal Behaviors (1) 150 Conversational functions and behavioral realizations (1) Communicative Functions Communicative Behavior Initiation and termination Reacting Short glance Inviting contact Sustained glance, Smile Distance salutation Looking, Head toss/nod, Raise eyebrows, Wave, Smile Close salutation Looking, Head nod, Embrace or handshake, Smile Break away Glance around Farewell Looking, Head nod, Wave 151 151 Using Lifelike Characters / REA 152 Functions of Nonverbal Behaviors (2) Conversational functions and behavioral realizations (2) Communicative Functions Communicative Behavior Turn-Taking Give turn Looking, Raise eyebrows (followed by silence) Wanting turn Raise hands into gesture space Take Turn Glance away, Start talking Feedback Request feedback Looking, Raise eyebrows Give feedback Looking, Head nod Comparison Comparison of Approaches (1) Soliloquy ALife-WebGuide PPP MIAU 152 REA 1. To what extent does U have to install additional software on her own computer? No No No Microsoft Agents; interactive version not yet web-capable System exists only as prototype 2. What sort of language or speech generation is S capable of? Filling in of templates Canned texts Reading aloud of pre-stored texts Reading aloud of texts generated with scripts Generation of speech coordinated with nonverbal behaviors 3. What sorts of input can the persona understand, aside from typed text? None None (No free language input); selection from presented questions and evaluations Specification of dialog parameters via user interface Speech and nonverbal behaviors 153 153 Soliloquy Using Lifelike Characters / Comparison 154 Comparison of Approaches (2) ALife-WebGuide PPP MIAU REA Facial expressions and gestures as supported by Microsoft agents Facial expressions and gestures 4. What means of emotional expression does S have? Only verbal expressions Sometimes appropriate facial expressions Dynamically generated facial expressions and gestures 5. What other nonverbal means of expression does S have? Dynamically generated tables Glances toward relevant parts of screen Pointing coordinated with speaking Occasional Gestures with meaningful considerable gestures (e.g., semantic content looking into a book) 6. To what extent is the behavior of S coordinated with the other aspects of U’s interaction with S? U can pursue links to other pages Often helpful comments that complement web pages Tight linking between persona’s behavior and other elements of the presentation (There are no other S’s behavior is aspects of the coordinated with interaction) display of pictures Comparison of Approaches (3) Soliloquy ALife-WebGuide PPP MIAU 154 REA 7. To what extent does S help U to concentrate her attention on the pursuit of her goal? Excessive structuring of the dialog OK, when understanding is successful Strong focusing, despite U’s freedom of action Complete focus on the product discussion, no other options for U Complete focus on the product discussion, no other options for U 8. To what extent is U made to feel that she is being recognized and treated as an individual? Longer-term but simple adaptation Only short-term adaptation to U Some longer-term adaptation, but not always visible to U Agents’ utterances are responsive to U’s Fine-grained responses to U’s behavior