Human-computer dialogue design considerations

The three critical elements of quality human-computer dialogue design include a compilation of existing design guidelines, behavioral research to expand the general dialogue principles, and a computer-aided implementation for retrieval of the guidelines by dialogue authors. The need for empirically based dialogue guidelines relating to generic human-computer taks is stressed. The results of two studies dealing with interactive text editing are presented as examples of research directed toward specifying dialogue design principles and developing formal tools for human-computer dialogue research. One of these studies deals with a methodology for developing user models, and the second study deals with the design of HELP information. Computer-aiding in the form of rule-based systems for selecting appropriate dialogue guidelines and software tools for authoring dialogues are discussed as means for implementing these dialogue design considerations.