Today I read a paper titled “Software Agents: Completing Patterns and Constructing User Interfaces”
The abstract is:
To support the goal of allowing users to record and retrieve information, this paper describes an interactive note-taking system for pen-based computers with two distinctive features.
First, it actively predicts what the user is going to write.
Second, it automatically constructs a custom, button-box user interface on request.
The system is an example of a learning-apprentice software- agent.
A machine learning component characterizes the syntax and semantics of the user’s information.
A performance system uses this learned information to generate completion strings and construct a user interface.
Description of Online Appendix: People like to record information.
Doing this on paper is initially efficient, but lacks flexibility.
Recording information on a computer is less efficient but more powerful.
In our new note taking softwre, the user records information directly on a computer.
Behind the interface, an agent acts for the user.
To help, it provides defaults and constructs a custom user interface.
The demonstration is a QuickTime movie of the note taking agent in action.
The file is a binhexed self-extracting archive.
Macintosh utilities for binhex are available from mac.archive.umich.edu.
QuickTime is available from ftp.apple.com in the dts/mac/sys.soft/quicktime..