Navigation and Planning in a Mixed-Initiative User Interface

Mixed-initiative planning is one approach to building an intelligent decision-making environment. A mixed-initiative system shares decision-making responsibility with the user such that it acts sometimes as a tool, to be directly applied to a specific task, and other times as an autonomous problem-solver. In the best case, the user can delegate the details of a task to the automated system without giving up the ability to guide and review the decision-making process. We have developed a simple mixed-initiative planner that incorporates a view of problem-solving as navigation. We have explored this notion in two different applications: exploratory statistical analysis and layout design for user interface dialogs. This paper discusses navigation issues in the context of these two systems, the potential benefits of the approach, and some implications for user interface design.

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