Intelligent Interface Design

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses intelligent interface design. The rapid technical progress in the area of human–computer interaction is driven largely by the forces of finance and feasibility. However, innovations themselves are the result of conceptual leaps that turn the possible into the actual. The increasingly cognitive nature of many of the tasks performed at present, combined with interface design possibilities in interactive human–computer tasks promotes the view of the interface as a communication channel, rather than as a physical device that allows control instructions to be passed to the machine and system responses to be observed by the human. Such communication is facilitated by an intelligent agent that mediates between the active participants. Such intelligent interfaces are not predicated on existing technology, as the concept involves an abstract mapping between cognitive and machine representations of tasks. The particular approach taken is a reflection of current needs and technological capabilities, but as tasks and technologies advance, the way that the abstract structure of intelligent interfaces is implemented would also change.