Colloquium

Friday, March 5, 1999
11:00 a.m.
Fuller Labs 311

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DIALOGUES WITH DOCUMENTS: CUSTOMIZED INTERACTION WITH TEXTS

Dr. Daniel Berleant
Department of Computer Systems Engineering
University of Arkansas

If we could have dialogues with sizeable documents instead of simply reading them, the benefits could be far-reaching. A user would ask a question or make a comment, and a Dialogue With Documents system would respond with either the most apropos passages in the document(s), or meta-responses for eliciting further user input to continue the dialogue. The natural appeal of such a system is supported by the fact that readers of on-line text already tend to scan and pick out passages rather than reading in a traditional sense (Nielsen 1999). Custom dialogues between users and documents would indeed be a useful and fascinating alternative to traditional ways of reading! Whether a user accesses a manual on repairing computers or automobiles, queries an encyclopedic work for specific facts, consults a work of philosophy with existential questions, or seeks answers within 300 web pages returned by a web search engine, a document dialogue system could greatly benefit information users in the information rich on-line environment of the coming millenium.

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Host: Micha Hofri

Colloquium Coordinator: Carolina Ruiz

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