In this paper, we argue that natural language interfaces with discourse capabilities have an important role to play in decision support systems, because such interfaces are responsive to focus of attention in the mind of a human decision maker. The decision support systems that we will discuss employ graphical user interfaces. They are characterized by strict ordering requirements for commands,...

Natural language speech enabled interfaces offer a compelling choice of user interaction for the automotive market. Such interfaces demand only a basic understanding of the system model instead of memorizing keywords and predefined patterns. To utilize natural language interfaces optimally, designers need to better comprehend how people communicate their requests to express their intentions and...

An enduring challenge in human-computer interaction (HCI) research is the creation of natural and intuitive interfaces. Explicit control over the personality that such interfaces are perceived to exhibit by their users is an important step towards more natural and efficient interfaces. In this paper we focus on the interaction between users and semantic knowledge-based systems where the goal of...

The key component in developing an effective virtual infantry training simulator is the user interface. Our goal is to develop interfaces that give users close to the same ability to move and coordinate actions as they have in the real world. We have developed two interfaces. Gaiter is a highly realistic body-driven interface in which the user walks in place to walk through the virtual world. W...

We are creating human machine interfaces which let people communicate with machines using natural modalities including speech and gesture. A problem with current multimodal interfaces is that users are forced to learn the set of words and gestures which the interface understands. We report on a trainable interface which lets the user teach the system words of their choice through natural multim...

Speech and other forms of natural language based applications are increasingly accepted. In particular in situations where traditional interaction techniques, such as mouse and keyboard/keypad input, seem limiting or simply distracting, speech can offer an adequate alternative. A concrete application for this kind of technology can be found in Ambient Assisted Living solutions, which aim at sup...

Dozens of novel natural interaction techniques are proposed every year to enrich interactive eco-systems with multitouch gestures, motion gestures, full body in motion, etc. We present a novel investigation of the community’s applied documentation practices for Natural User Interfaces (NUI). Our investigation includes analyzing a survey targeted at NUI designers and a large sample of recently p...

WYSIWYM (‘What you see is what you meant’) is a user-interface technique which uses natural language generation (NLG) technology to provide feedback for user interactions. To date, the technology has been applied in a number of demonstrator applications, using customised, nonportable implementations. In this demonstration, we introduce a WYSIWYM library package, designed to be used as a modular...

Unlike traditional over-the-phone spoken dialog systems (SDSs), modern dialog systems tend to have visual rendering on the device screen as an additional modality to communicate the system’s response to the user. Visual display of the system’s response not only changes human behavior when interacting with devices, but also creates new research areas in SDSs. Onscreen item identification and res...