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Narrative User Interfaces Glossary

By Gerd Waloszek, SAP AG, SAP User Experience – Updated: November 5, 2009

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The following glossary list terms from the narrative user interfaces field. (It has been taken from the design tidbit Narrative User Interfaces.)

Please note that this glossary and list of references is neither intended to be be complete nor exhaustive. As links change frequently, we cannot guarantee that the provided links will work.

 

A

Affective Computing

Affective computing is concerned with the means to recognize and synthesize "emotional intelligence." Whereas emotional intelligence includes both bodily and mental events, affective computing presently focuses mainly on the apparent characteristics of verbal and nonverbal communication in relatively simple settings (Duric et al. 2002). As an example, research areas in affective computing at the MIT Media Lab comprise, among others:

Agents

Definitions from different sources at MIT:

A software agent is a program that performs tasks for its user (Leonard Foner, foner.www.media.mit.edu/people/foner/agents.html)

Software agents differ from conventional software in that they are long-lived, semi-autonomous, proactive, and adaptive (MIT Media Lab, Software Agents Group, agents.media.mit.edu/index.html)
Adaptive agents are able to learn and to change their behavior based on experience, while fixed agenda/rule-based agents have a predefined behavior.

Artificial Agents

Synonym for (software) agents. Emphasizes that agents are artifacts.

Autonomous (Intelligent) Agents

Synonym for (software) agents. Emphasizes the autonomy and in-built intelligence (planning, inference) of software agents. Autonomy means that agents act without user intervention (for example, an agent may search the Web for relevant papers).

Avatar

In the Hindu religion, an avatar is an incarnation of a deity; hence, an embodiment or manifestation of an idea or greater reality. In 3D or virtual reality games and in some chat forums on the Web, an avatar is the visual "handle" or display appearance visitors use to represent themselves ("bodily incarnation in Cyberspace"). Generally speaking, an avatar is a "virtual" representation of a human.

C

Clicks and Mortar

Clicks and mortar (sometimes written clicks-and-mortar) is a term describing traditional old economy companies that are taking advantage of the Internet and the new economy it has introduced. The term derives from bricks and mortar, used in the context of the Web to describe traditional companies with physical (rather than Web site) locations.
As typically used in the media, a clicks and mortar company is one that has begun to exploit the Internet, not only in marketing and sales, but also in terms of its total business process. A clicks and mortar firm would be likely to take part in business-to-business (B2B) exchanges. (The term's origin is attributed to David Pottruck, CEO of Charles Schwab Corp.) (from searchCRM.com, adapted)
The research group of Prof. Encarnação (Fraunhofer IDG) uses this term slightly differently: Clicks and mortar means to marry technology and the best qualities of people to create the perfect environment for success.

Conversational Agents (Embodied Conversational Agents)

Autonomous intelligent agent systems that engage in a natural conversation with users; these agents are called embodied if they are represented by a physical embodiment, such as an avatar.

E

Embodiment

Describes the way in which users are themselves directly represented within the display space. That is, users are considered within the space, not as observers looking onto it. This does not necessarily imply the use of immersive interface technologies, only that the user has some representation within the space. Embodiment may convey the awareness of presence, identity, and activity to other people. Avatars may be used for embodiment. (from Steve Benford, adapted)

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one's thinking and actions (Mayer & Salovey, 1993: 433).

H

HCI (Human-Computer Interaction)

Human-computer interaction is a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them. (From ACM SIGCHI Curricula for Human-Computer Interaction)

I

IHCI (Intelligent Human-Computer Interaction)

Discipline that models human cognitive, perceptual, motor, and affective factors and uses them to adapt the human-computer interface. (From Duric et al.)

Immersive User Interfaces

Immersive user interfaces create the illusion for users of being inside a computer-generated world where they can manipulate objects. Typically, these interfaces are used in 3D and Virtual Reality (VR) applications.

Intelligent Agents

Synonym for (software) agents. Intelligent agents are able to show planning and inference behavior.

M

Multi-Modal User Interfaces

User interfaces that utilize several human senses (or interaction modes), for example, touch, or physical actions.

Narrative Environments

For example, learning or entertainment environments with a narrative structure, that is, that are based on the storytelling paradigm. This approach holds that such environments communicate more effectively and are more memorable, and thus are more effective themselves.

N

Narrative Intelligence

The human ability to organize experiences into narrative form, that is the ability of telling stories that follow a certain dramaturgy, logic, or pattern, "narrative intelligence." The term is also the name of a new interdisciplinary research field with contributions from artificial intelligence (AI), computer science, human-computer interaction (HCI), and many humanistic fields of study.

Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis

This hypothesis suggests that the evolutionary origin of communicating in a narrative format co-evolved with increasingly complex social dynamics among our human ancestors (from Dautenhahn)
See also narrative intelligence

Narrative User Interfaces

User interfaces or environments (e.g. learning environments) based upon the storytelling paradigm. Narrative interfaces may show goal-directed behavior, and may have humanoid representations, such as avatars (which may show lip-sync speech and emotions) and multi-modal interaction.

S

Social Computing

Social computing aims to support the tendency of humans to interact with computers as if they were veritable social actors. Social computing may, for example, be realized by using life-like synthetic characters with context aware affective behavior (avatars). Another avenue is to implement systems with narrative intelligence, which meets the tendency of humans to frame other agents' behavior into narrative. (H. Prendinger & M. Ishizuka, 2001, modified by author)

Software Agents

See agents

Storytelling, Storytelling Paradigm

The storytelling paradigm is based on the assumption that by telling stories we make sense of the world: We order its events and find meaning in them by assimilating them to more or less familiar narratives. The psychologist Bruner (1991) argues that narrative is fundamental to human understanding of intentional behavior.
Research under the storytelling paradigm comprises support for human storytelling, especially for children, data bases of stories in which stories describe how people handled commonly occurring problem situations, the design of story-understanding systems, as well as autonomous "intelligent" agents.

 

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