Conference heron::euro_swas_ai

39.0. "MCC Human Interface Newsletter" by MUNEDU::BUERKERT (HEINZ 57-Varieties) Tue Nov 29 1988 09:14

							INTERNAL USE ONLY

MCC Human Interface Newsletter No. 12
*************************************

November 28, 1988

Prepared by: Bill Kuhlman, Digital Liaison to MCC HI Lab, 
             Austin, Texas


Introduction
============
This newsletter attempts to summarize timely information related to work 
in progress in the MCC Human Interface Laboratory.  Please feel free to forward 
it within Digital.  New additions to the distribution list can be sent to 
AUSTIN::KUHLMAN.  Previous issues of the newsletter are posted in the VAXnotes 
conference RDVAX::MCC-HI (Note 14).  For copies of technical reports, send mail
to RDVAX::MCC.

Indepth Meeting
----------------
The MCC Human Interface Laboratory will host a technical meeting December 8 
and 9, 1988.  The purpose of this indepth review is to describe the lab's work 
on the integrated Human Interface Toolset (HITS).  A  software release of HITS 
will follow the December indepth.  This release will include the HITS runtime 
system and component tools.   An agenda for the meeting is posted in 
RDVAX::MCC-HI (Note 7.8).

Move to MLO1-3
--------------
The Technology Development Program Office is moving from Hudson to the Mill,
along with the rest of Corporate Research.  Consequently, the DEC MCC Library 
will be temporarily closed from November 28 to December 12 in order to relocate 
in an orderly fashion.  Requests for MCC technical reports received after Nov. 
28 will be filled after December 12.

Human Interface Laboratory
==========================
Elaine Rich left the HI lab in late October, and is now head of the Expert 
Systems Technology project (Proteus) in the MCC AI lab.

New Hardware Being Considered
-----------------------------
The lab is looking at the MacIvory as a possible new platform.  The MacIvory 
configuration uses a Symbolics Ivory board on a Macintosh II.  To evaluate it, 
the lab ported the Simulation Environment and the Icon Editor to a beta test 
version.  In general, the port was trivial.  A group of shareholder
representatives is being formed to consider this and other alternatives to the
Symbolics machine, in order to make it easier for shareholders to use the lab's
tools.  The lab is also considering embedding Ivory in the Interactive
Worksurface.

HITS
----
The HITS Knowledge Editor, the Graphics Editor, Themis and advice angels,
sections of the HITS Discourse System, and the Lucy natural language 
understanding system are all now utilizing the HITS runtime system.  Angels
in Themis are incorporated into the blackboard model as knowledge sources.

A goal-based agenda mechanism has been added to the HITS runtime system.
This mechanism assists in controlling the scheduling and performance of 
knowledge source actions.  The goal-structured agenda allows builders of 
knowledge sources to specify the goals that given actions are attempting to
solve.

Knowledge Base Editing Platform [HKE]
-------------------------------------
The HITS Knowledge Editor (HKE) is serving as an example of a HITS-style 
interface.  There is a graphical component to the interface (the desktop 
metaphor), which illustrates the use of graphical icons.  Natural language is 
available and is being used primarily as a way to describe the units that 
should serve as the arguments to HKE functions.  Advice angels are being 
exploited, primarily in Luke, a natural language acquisition  system, which 
runs in tandem with HKE so that NL acquisition can happen in parallel with 
knowledge-base building.

Intelligent User Assistance
---------------------------
The IUA folks are exploring the possibility of using DECtalk speech synthesis
to enhance advice angels.  Speech output would indicate when advice is available
and allow a brief description of the advice while minimizing the use of screen
resources.

The model of advice angels has been transformed from one angel per coaching
strategy to one angel per advisable activity.  Each angel is now a knowledge
source "agent" with access to multiple strategies.

Natural Language Interface
--------------------------
The major effort has been in getting the Lucy natural language understanding
system integrated into the HITS blackboard control architecture.  The NL group
has begun a design and code review of Lucy in preparation for its release
after the December indepth.

Graphical Interface
-------------------
The "Copier Control Panel" demo was completed to demonstrate the integration
of the various HITS tools.  In this demo, a user can draw freehand sketches
of components of a control panel on the interactive worksurface.  The components
are recognized by a neural net and dynamic icons are created to replace the
sketch.  These icons are then tied to the control panel application.  Then
the user can actually click on one of these icons and have it act as the
corresponding control panel component.

This demo is being enhanced for the December indepth to allow the use of 
natural language to tie graphic objects to applications (replacing menus)
and to provide intelligent advice on graphic design.

Three videotapes have been completed to show work in progress: 
1) "Visualization" shows the usefulness of the Icon Editor to support convoy 
recognition in parallel processing in the MCC Systems Technology lab;  
2) "Icons in CYC" demonstrates some new capabilities of icons in any window, 
taking advantage of the output devices, process icons, and knowledge 
representation of graphics.  Design advice is provided using advice angels.
3) "HITS: Copier Interface Design" shows the integration of some of the tools 
in HITS to create an interface of a copier panel display.

Organizational Interface
------------------------
The December issue of Byte Magazine includes an article by Jonathan Grudin,
from the OI team, on the "Perils and Pitfalls" of groupware.  The issue also
includes other articles on groupware by Douglas Engelbart, Tom Malone, and 
Terry Winograd.

Analysis of interviews from the participant-observer studies has yielded
some interesting quotes.  This one refers to a recent reorganization at
one company.
	
  "I don't think anybody's figured it out yet! I don't think anybody 
  has taken the time. Everybody's working so hard at defining their   
  perch. I've got this image that you've got this big bird cage ... 
  and everybody has their perch. And then along comes a new vice-president, 
  and bang they hit the cage with their baseball bat and all the birds 
  fly up in the air. And they take out a couple of perches and then 
  everybody comes down to land. And they work real hard at getting their 
  perch stabilized, and now I got a job definition and I'm building 
  my empire again. And just about the time everybody gets settled and 
  starts singing again, here comes the next king, right. The king's 
  dead, long live the king. BANG! They hit the bird cage again and everybody 
  flies up, and it's just crazy! You never have consistency.... Any 
  time you change the organization all [the] commitments are gone! And 
  what the hell's the customer do with that!..."
	
Comings and Goings (DEC/MCC)
=============================
At MCC
------
George Champine, DEC manager of Project Athena at MIT, visited the lab 
on October 20.

Bill Johnson, Vice President of Distributed Systems Engineering/ Marketing
visited MCC on October 31.  Jim Hollan gave BJ an overview of the HI lab.

Chuck Kukla, with the CIM Product Marketing group, visited HI and STP on
November 15-16 to discuss possible collaboration between MCC and the
Digital-Fisher-Monsanto joint project.  He is interested in using the lab's
interface prototyping tools, as well as organizational interface and CSCW.

At DEC
------
Steve Poltrock and Maria Nasr, from the Organizational Interface project,
gave a Technical Seminar talk titled "User Interface Design and Development: 
Survey and Observational Studies of Interdisciplinary Collaboration", at ZKO
on November 11.  The TSS was hosted by Bill Kuhlman, MCC liaison, and was 
attended by 56 Digital engineers and managers.  The talk summarized the
results of the participant-observer visits to shareholder companies and
the interface design survey.  Steve also made a presentation to BOSE management
and project leaders which was teleconferenced to Reading.  

Upcoming Meeting
================
December 8-9, 1988       Human Interface Indepth on HITS