Working Out a Common Task: Design and Evaluation of User-Intelligent System Collaboration

This paper describes the design and user evaluation of an intelligent user interface intended to mediate between users and an Adaptive Information Extraction (AIE) system. The design goal was to support a synergistic and cooperative work between user and AIE. Past laboratory experiments had shown the approach was efficient and effective. A set of focus groups were run to assess its ease of use. Logs, user satisfaction questionnaires, and interviews were exploited to investigate the interaction experience. We found that users’ attitudes are mainly hierarchical with the user wishing to control and check the system’s initiatives. However when confidence in the system capabilities rises, a more cooperative interaction is adopted.