Deliverable 4.4 - INSEAD CALT

AtGentive IST-4-027529-STP - Attentive Agents for Collaborative Learners• Recognition rather than recall• Flexibility and efficiency of use• Aesthetic and minimalist design• Help users recognise, diagnose, and recover from errors• Help and documentationAtGentive interacts with the user, and as with any human-computer interaction situation,these “standard” heuristics would be expected to apply. For example, where the“interaction” is an animated character suggesting that the user open an additionaldocument, the words used should be understandable by the intended users (“Matchbetween system and the real world”), if the suggestion is accepted it should bereasonably easy to close that document (“User control and freedom”), the documentshould not be opened using unfamiliar software (“Consistency and standards”) and soforth.In addition, new heuristics have been created to assess AtGentive-related interactions.As with the “standard” usability heuristics, these additional heuristics are based uponexamination of the area (in this case, the proposed scenarios)These heuristics are derived from the Key Indicators (see Section 3.2). As with the“standard” usability heuristics described above, the Key Indicators – and thus theadditional heuristics – are based upon examination of the area (in this case, thescenarios to be implemented).Key Indicator One: AttentionSuccess in attracting attentionWhere the system attracts the user’s attention, it should do so in a manner that will notbe accidentally overlooked or misinterpretedDistraction is minimisedThe user should not be interrupted in their task, unless the interruption assists that tasksignificantly or is justified by the importance of the interruption. Where appropriate,interruptions should be delayed until the user is less busy.Any animated agent should not be unduly distractingKey Indicator Two: Performance (Effectiveness and Efficiency)Task is performed wellInterventions should not cause a task to be performed less well overall. Where theintervention is intended to improve the performance of a task, it should do so.Key Indicator Three: SatisfactionOverall satisfactionAll suggestions / interventions made by the system should appear to the user to have atleast some effective purpose. The user should not consider any suggestion to be“pointless” or “stupid”.Del 4.4: AtGentive Final Evaluation Report page 24