We are reaching a crisis with design of user interfaces for consumer electronics. Flashing 12:00 time indicators, push-and- hold buttons, and interminable modes and menus are all symptoms of trying to maintain a one-to-one correspondence between functions and physical controls, which becomes hopeless as the number of capabilities of devices grows. We propose instead to orient interfaces around the goals that users have for the use of devices.
We present Roadie, a user interface agent that provides intelligent context-sensitive help and assistance for a network of consumer devices.
私たちは、ここで「ローディ」という名前のインターフェイスエージェントを紹介します。ローディは、消費者家電製品のネットワークにおいて状況に対応したヘルプをユーザーに提供します。
Roadie uses a Commonsense knowledge base to map between user goals and functions of the devices, and an AI partial-order planner to provide mixed-initiative assistance with executing multi-step procedures and debugging help when things go wrong.
Current consumer electronics are getting more and more complicated, threatening to outstrip the competence that can be reasonably expected from their intended users. For example, a typical consumer camera, the Canon S500, has 15 buttons, two dials, 4 x 2 mode switches, 3 menus of 5 choices in each mode, each with two or three values, 7 on-screen mode icons, etc.
現在の消費者家電製品は飛躍的に複雑になりつつあり、意図したユーザーが備えていると予想される能力のレベルを上回るほどになっていることが懸念されます。たとえば、典型的な一般使用者を対象としたカメラであるCanon S500は、15種類のボタンと、2つのダイヤル、それぞれ4種類のモードがある2つのモード変換スイッチ、しかも各モードには5つの選択肢がある3つのメニューがあり、それぞれが2-3種類の値から選択が可能で、さらに画面上には7つのモードアイコンが並んでいます。
We attribute the growing complexity of consumer electronics interface design to the desire to maintain the one-to-one correspondence between functions and controls that worked well for simpler devices. But as the number of functions of a device grows, controls get overloaded, leading to heavily-moded interfaces, push-and-hold buttons, long and deep menus, and other confusing and error-prone interface elements. The next generation of consumer electronics devices will incorporate processing and networking, making things potentially more complex if we stick to manual operation, but also opening up new possibilities for automating co-operation between multiple devices.
We propose to re-orient the interface around the goals of the user, rather than the functions of the device. Something, then, has to map between the user’s goals and the concrete functions of the device. We propose to fill this gap with Roadie, an interface that makes use of Commonsense knowledge and a partial-order planner to give the user proactive advice, automate complex tasks, and provide debugging help when things go wrong.
It is not only the “normal operation” of the device that users need help with. There are other scenarios associated with consumer devices that users need help with.
The advent of powerful computing and communication in devices gives us the potential of providing help with these scenarios, as well as merely invoking functions of the device.In this paper, we present Roadie, a prototype consumer electronics interface oriented towards the needs of non-expert users. The project name comes from the person who is in charge of setting up the audio and video devices during music concert tours.
At the top of the interface are the suggested goals. When the user picks one of the options, the planner calculates a plan to reach the goal. The answer is mapped to English by the device interface, and rendered by the user interface, highlighting the action that is going to be executed next.
インターフェイスの最上部にあるのは、提案されるゴールです。ユーザーがオプションの1つを選択した場合に、プランナがゴールに到達するため計画を計算します。この答えは機器のインターフェイスで英語にマップされ、ユーザーインターフェイスによって、次に実行されるアクションが強調された形で提示されます。
Roadie is designed to operate with devices that 1) provide means to control their functions, and 2) that can query their state by external software. The first requirement allows Roadie to control the devices on the user’s behalf; the second allows Roadie not only to watch the state changes of the devices and interpret them as the user’s actions, but it also monitors the devices by looking for direct user interaction.
Unfortunately, the devices available to us at this time do not meet these two requirements. The devices’ manufacturers are aware of this problem and created the UPnP [15] standard.
残念なことに、現時点で私たちが入手できる機器は、前述の2つの要件を提供しません。これに気が付いた機器の製造企業は、この問題に対してUPnP [15] 標準を作成しました。
Unfortunately, the manufacturers have not started to build devices that fully comply with this standard. Furthermore, they sometimes do not fully expose to the applications programmer all the necessary controls and states to accomplish a given task. Some manufacturers are interested in implementing sets of branded devices that coordinate using a proprietary protocol that prevents systems like Roadie from fully implementing general interaction with the device.
