The field of Affective User Interfaces (AUIs) is an emerging discipline that is growing in importance, both in industry and the research community. An AUI could be an avatar or Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA) representing a user in virtual meeting spaces such as chat rooms or MUDs, a part of the interface between user and an application/web-page (HCI) or, in some cases, the ultimate ubiquitous interface to Smart Environments (SE). An AUI often places emphasis on HCI rather than on reproduction of the human form as in ECAs.
An AUI could be an embodied conversational agent whose audio-visual appearance and behaviour may vary dependant upon the interface context and the :
- Amount of embodiment (e.g. Talking Head / Virtual Human / avatar / plain GUI),
- Style of rendering (e.g., schematic / abstract / iconic; 2D/ 2½ D/ 3D),
- Quality and affectiveness of the voice (synthetic / synthetic with emotion/ natural voice),
- Sophistication of animation (e.g., still images / cartoon / realistic),
- Believability of the interaction (e.g. quality of the Dialogue Manager),
- Service and functionality being offered and,
- Underlying personality and emotional capabilities of the character.
This is a multidisciplinary field that embraces HCI, graphics and animation, embodied conversational agents, dialogue management, machine learning, AUI scripting languages, text-to-speech synthesis (and perhaps speech-to-text for input), etc. Both industry and academic researchers are developing AUI systems and applying the AUIs as sophisticated intelligent interfaces to applications and Web pages as well as to Smart Environments. Submissions of papers and demonstrations are encourageed from both industry and academic researchers.
It is crucial that this development is paralleled by evaluation. Too many of these interfaces have been ineffectual or
invoked hostility in users because of developer's lack of understanding about basic acceptance criteria such as effectiveness, usability, trust, etc.
This workshop will bring both established and new researchers together to discuss the development,
implementation and evaluation of AUI systems, the current AUI state-of-the-art and to create a
vision for the future of AUI interface technology.
This workshop is one in a series, URLs for these workshops can be found on
http://www.vhml.org/workshops/.
The origin of this workshop dates from a series of successful workshops concerned with Embodied Conversational
Agents and Talking Heads:
MAJOR TOPICS include (but are not limited to)
- AUI-user interaction paradigms.
- AUIs for Smart Environments.
- The role of AUIs in Smart Environments.
- Evaluation / case studies of AUIs as interfaces.
- AUI interface applications - shop assistants, presentation agents for the WWW, email
interfaces, Talking Heads, interfaces on the Web, etc.
- Factors which influence user acceptance and believability, i.e. the use of cartoon-like
characters vs. photo-realism.
- Conversational skills of AUIs - dialogue management and knowledge bases.
- AUI directing and specification languages - controlling of emotions, speech intonation, facial and body behaviour, Personality models, Text to Speech systems .
- AUI modelling / rendering
WORKSHOP FORMAT
The workshop will feature a mix of presentations, demonstrations, and discussion rounds. The presentations could cover one of the
several themes of the workshop and should be oriented toward:
- Description and/or evaluation of AUI interface systems or Smart Environments with
- Pointers, such as on-line demos or videos, to actual working examples that demonstrate their usage and practicality.
- Pointers to evaluation results, eg, AUI's believability, engagement, affect, use within a Smart Environment.
- Design decisions for AUI specifications or languages that control the AUI.
- Practical knowledge from evaluation of robust academic or commercial systems. Discussing the link between the targeted audience and actual outcomes of the system.
The workshop will conclude with a panel discussion of:
- Important issues raised within presentations,
- A visionary glimpse of / plan for the future for the future for AUIs.
WORKSHOP DEMONSTRATIONS & EXHIBITS
We strongly encourage you to demonstrate your work and to provide URLs to permanent web sites that contain examples of your system.
To give us time to organize the technical requirements, if you are to demonstrate your system, we must be notified before
. Contact us for details at: raytrace@vhml.org
WORKSHOP OUTCOMES
At the end of the workshop, participants should have a broad understanding of the
differing technologies involved in the production, development and directing of
AUI systems and applications.
They will have seen several AUI systems and will understand the problems associated with the technology.
They will have contributed, through discussion, to the future development of individual AUI interfaces within
the global context. They will also become part of a network of AUI researchers and practitioners.
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