Usability Guidelines for Interactive Search in Direct Manipulation Systems

As AI systems make their way into the mainstream of interactive applications, usability becomes an increasingly important factor in their success. A wide range of user interface design guidelines have been developed for the direct manipulation and graphical user interface conventions of modern software. Unfortunately, it is not always clear how these should be applied to AI systems. This paper discusses a visualization assistant, an e-commerce simulation domain we have applied it to, and the guidelines we found relevant in the construction of its user interface. The goal of this paper is to explain how an interactive system can incorporates searchbased intelligent behavior while still respecting well-established rules for effective user interaction.

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