CS124: Investigation 6

Interface Agents

Due:
Monday, November 19, 1:15pm on Sakai

This is an individual investigation. You may discuss this investigation with others, but should complete all work on your own.

Goals

The goals of this Investigation are:

To become familiar with an existing agent-based interface
To critically evaluate the utility and usability of an existing agent-based interface
To examine the role of emotion and trust in computer interfaces

Before you Begin

You are ready to go on this investigation. Please get started right away!

Assignment

In this assignment you will critically examine an agent-based interface: News at Seven, an intelligent agent for presenting the news. You will use this agent for at least a week and then write a critique of the advantages and disadvantages of this interface over "traditional" (but intelligent) software to accomplish the same task.

You will use two news sites to obtain news every day for at least a week. The first site will be an agent-based site called News at Seven, which we looked at briefly in class. The second site is a personalized version of Google News. You will compare your experience using the two sites and then write an analysis of the difference between the two sites (more details below).

Part 1: Setup (DO THIS NOW!)

Go to www.newsatseven.com and set up your personalized news broadcast. To do this, click on the "My News" link at the top of the page, or the big link in the middle of the page that says "Click here to build your own personalized show". Choose the categories you are interested in from the pane on the left, and then run the show. Make sure you choose categories that you are actually interested in so that this is a meaningful experience.

Now, go to Google News and personalize to focus on news you are interested in. If you do not have a Google account, you will need to make one now. (If you really don't want to sign up for a Google account, you can simply use cnn.com or latimes.com or any other generic news site for this assignment).

To personalize your Google News page, see this site for instructions. Let me know if you have trouble. Try to set up your Google News site to focus on the same categories you selected in your News at Seven setup so that content-wise the two news experiences are as similar as possible.

When you have successfully set up both sites, send me an email to confirm that you have completed part 1 of the assignment. You must do this by Friday, Nov 9 at the latest.

Part 2: Using the interfaces

Use these interfaces to obtain your news EVERY DAY FOR AT LEAST ONE WEEK. This involves listening to your personalized News at Seven broadcast and browsing the Google News site. You don't have to check both sites back to back, but you must access each site every day. If you miss a day, just add a day onto the end of the week.

Your goal in interacting with these sites is to form a detailed, dependable opinion about what embodied agents provide the user in this context. As you interact with News at Seven, keep in mind the following questions (from Interaction Design, by Preece, et al., p. 213):

What does this agent do?
In what way is it an "agent" (as we discussed in class)?
What kind of agent is it? (Anthropomorphic? Assistive? Does it learn?)
Does it elicit an emotional response from you? (If so, what is it?)
What kind of personality does the agent have, if any?
How does the agent express its personality?
How does the agent appear on screen? Is it realistic or cartoon-like?
How does it communicate with the user? Text or speech? Facial expressions? Gestures?
Is the level of discourse appropriate (patronizing or at the right level)?
What advantages does this agent have over the more "traditional" interface?
What is problematic about this interface?
How is the agent nature of the interface appropriate? (I.e., what works in this interface?)
How could this interface be improved?
Do you trust this interface?
How would you rate the quality of the information you receive?

When interacting with Google News, think about how your interactions and feelings differ from when you were interacting with News at Seven. Consider the questions above as well as the following additional questions:

Is it easy to find information?
What role does personalization play? Does personalization affect you here the same way it affected you in the News at Seven interface?

Part 3: Writeup

Finally you will organize and write up your observations. To break the monotony of the more formal reading responses, this writeup will be a little more whimsical (but you still need to be sure to follow good writing style--see below).

Your task is to write a 2-3 page (single spaced, length is approximate) letter to a relative or friend who is not very tech-savvy, but who is considering which news site they should start using: either Google News or News at Seven. (If you have no non-tech-savvy friends or relatives, make one up). Your task is to convince him or her which news site will give him or her the best personal experience.

In this letter, you should describe why the interface you have chosen is well-suited to this individual, as well as why the interface you didn't choose is not as well suited. You should include specific characteristics about the person you are writing, as well as specific characteristics about the interface based on your personal interaction with the News at Seven and the Google News site to justify your claims. Also, you should base your arguments and discussion in the themes outlined above. That is, your arguments should be clearly linked to the themes from this class and be specific, not just random observations that express your own opinions (e.g., don't say something like "Google News is better because I didn't trust the agents in News at Seven." Instead articulate why your friend would not trust the agents in the News at Seven broadcast--was it something about their speech? The way they gestured? etc.)

Even though this writing assignment is less formal, it should still be well-written. Ensure that you still do the following:

Clearly organize your points and your overall argument.
Use clear, specific evidence to support your position.
Organize each paragraph around a single theme that clearly supports your argument.
Write clearly and concisely. Avoid unnecessary wordiness.
Proofread for spelling and grammatical errors.
Write at least one draft that you do not turn in. Preferably get someone else to read that draft (I am more than happy to be that person, assuming you get it to me several days before the assignment is due). I strongly recommend you take this draft (along with this assignment description) to the writing center several days before it is due.

As with the reading responses, this investigation is somewhat open-ended, so come seem me if you have questions about what you are supposed to be doing.

What to Hand In

You only need to hand in your writeup, described above in part 3.

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