The PPP persona: a multipurpose animated presentation agent

ABSTRACT

Animated agents - either based on real video, cartoon-style drawings or even model-based 3D graphics are likely to become integral parts of future user interfaces. We present the PPP Persona, a tool which can be used for showing, explaining, and verbally commenting textual and graphical output on a window-based interface. The realization of the module follows the client/server paradigm, i.e, some client applications can send requests for executing presentation tasks to the server. However, to achieve a lively and appealing behaviour of the animated agent, the server autonomously performs some actions, eg. to span pauses or to react immediately to user interactions.

REFERENCES

• 1: {André et al. 93} E. André, W. Graf, J. Heinsohn, B. Nebel, H. J. Profitlich, T. Rist, and W. Wahlster. PPP - Personalized Plan-Based Presenter. Document D-93-5, DFKI, Saarbrücken, 1993.
• 2: {André et al. 96} E. André, J. Müller, and T. Rist. The PPP Persona: A Multipurpose Animated Presentation Agent. Report, DFKI, Saarbrücken, 1996. Extended Version.
• 3: Edwin Bos , Carla Huls , Wim Claassen, EDWARD: full integration of language and action in a multimodal user interface, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, v.40 n.3, p.473-495, March 1994 [doi>10.1006/ijhc.1994.1022]
• 4: Simon Gibbs , Christian Breiteneder , Vicki de Mey , Michael Papathomas, Video widgets and video actors, Proceedings of the 6th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.179-185, December 1993, Atlanta, Georgia, United States [doi>10.1145/168642.168660]
• 5: Brenda Laurel , S. Joy Mountford, The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1990
• 6: Wolfgang Wahlster , Elisabeth André , Wolfgang Finkler , Hans-Jürgen Profitlich , Thomas Rist, Plan-based integration of natural language and graphics generation, Artificial Intelligence, v.63 n.1-2, p.387-427, Oct. 1993 [doi>10.1016/0004-3702(93)90022-4]