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Future Scope

 

Future Scope – Tangible Information

By Christina Heutgens, SAP AG – 11/20/2002, updated 01/22/2004

Discovering new ways to think about and approach SAP's own product development, as well as stimulating discussion and the active exchange of innovative ideas. These are the goals of a new SAP-internal lecture series called "Future Scope." This event series is a mix of presentations, demonstrations, and workshops designed to give SAP employees the opportunity to experience the compelling technology and business innovations currently being developed by prestigious global research institutes – and discover what these new ideas could mean for SAP, its product portfolio, and software tools of tomorrow.

In the first lecture of the "Future Scope" series, Professor José L. Encarnação from the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD) in Darmstadt, Germany, presented a new generation of user interfaces.

Professor José L. Encarnação

Figure 1: Professor José L. Encarnação

The fact that training end-users costs more time and money than the actual purchasing and implementation of a new software system these days has triggered a significant paradigm change, stated Professor Encarnação. With telecommunications and information systems developing at breakneck speed, and more closely networked with one another, traditional end-user training programs are no longer viewed as efficient or effective. In the future, he adds, users will not need to learn how to use software to operate a system. Instead, the software system will serve its users. Therefore, the next generation of software development must unveil radical new methods and vehicles for transferring information and knowledge, according to the research expert. Instead of just relaying facts and data, software systems will need to tell a story and appeal to the emotions of users.

Avatar

Figure 2: Avatar

"We must go beyond the desktop paradigm," emphasized the professor. Designing and developing new multimodal and conversational interaction methods that use various levels of reality (computer-generated, actual, and virtual), a system learns from its users, so that it can best serve their needs and expectations, and be able to guide them to the information they require.

Professor Encarnação demonstrated this innovative approach to knowledge transfer by presenting a research project underway at the Computer Graphics Center (ZGDV) in Darmstadt. Called "Tangible Information," this project features a prototype for a human/machine interface of the future – in the form of a digital trade show booth. In this example, storytelling is used as a method for explaining technical details and complicated algorithms – the format helping to make the information more interesting and more understandable.

In this example, the system recognizes both context and situation in real-time. A visitor enters a trade show booth, stepping on a doormat containing sensors. The system acknowledges that a customer has entered and is looking for specific information. Using a touch screen embedded in a catalog, the visitor selects topics of interest. An avatar, or virtual assistant, enables the visitor to communicate with the system, and vice versa, using speech recognition. These avatars can communicate with visitors virtually from the screen – or in reality through a physical robot.

Demo of digital trade show

Figure 3: Demo of digital trade show booth prototype

The digital trade show booth example uses both types of avatars, although Professor Encarnação pointed out that empirical research has not been carried out to determine which form these types of virtual assistants should take and how they function so that they are best accepted by end-users. Avatar representations that are most human-like in character – including lip synchronization, language use, and forms of expression – will bring about entirely new challenges in software development. They require different types of programming environments — and different types of software developers. Pure technical skills will not be enough, added the researcher.

Even if the digital trade show booth example will never be 100% transferable for application in SAP's market space, the concept of user interfaces remains a vital one for the company, emphasized Lutz Heuser from SAP Corporate Research, in his short introduction to the event. SAP must continue asking the mission-critical question of how SAP can improve user access to its software. "There's clear room for improvement," said Lutz, thanking the professor for his innovative thoughts. Professor Encarnação further suggested that new user interfaces could find application in electronic commerce, collaborative learning environments, field service employees, or in the area of customer relationship management, for example.

Lutz Heuser, SAP Corporate Research

Figure 4: Lutz Heuser, SAP Corporate Research

After his presentation, a selected group of SAP colleagues joined the professor in a workshop, where they were able to go into more detail on the ideas and scenarios of the researcher's presentation and discuss both technological and marketing perspectives.

See also From GUIs to Narrative Interfaces – From Point-and-Click to Computers Telling Stories

 

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