Assistance in human–machine interaction: a conceptual framework and a proposal for a taxonomy

Abstract

Many interactive systems offer assistance when users have difficulties in operating or using them. In spite of the overwhelming variety of assistance techniques available, it is often unclear what type of assistance is really needed and how special assistance functions should be designed. The first step towards theoretically solid design decisions is a conceptual framework and a comprehensive taxonomy of assistance. This paper proposes to define assistance as access to machine functions and provides a taxonomy based mainly on action stages to be assisted. These stages are: (1) motivation, activation and goal setting; (2) perception; (3) information integration, generating situation awareness; (4) decision-making, action selection; (5) action execution; and (6) processing feedback of action results. In analogy to social assistance, various types of technical assistance are assigned to the six action stages. As additional dimensions to classify assistance, we also discuss adjustment, initiative, presentation media and input modality.

Keywords:

• Assistance
• Help systems
• User support
• Action stages
• Human–machine interaction

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the Lead Project Human–Computer Interaction. It is part of the project EMBASSI (electronic multimodal operational and service assistance) supported by BMBF under contract 01IL9041.

Notes

Email: [email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

H. Wandke *

Email: [email protected]