User modeling

About: User modeling is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10701 publications have been published within this topic receiving 278012 citations.

Software agents: completing patterns and constructing user interfaces

Abstract: To support the goal of allowing users to record and retrieve information, this paper describes an interactive note-taking system for pen-based computers with two distinctive features. First, it actively predicts what the user is going to write. Second, it automatically constructs a custom, button-box user interface on request. The system is an example of a learning-apprentice software-agent. A machine learning component characterizes the syntax and semantics of the user's information. A performance system uses this learned information to generate completion strings and construct a user interface.

Introducing Docear's research paper recommender system

Abstract: In this demo paper we present Docear's research paper recommender system. Docear is an academic literature suite to search, organize, and create research articles. The users' data (papers, references, annotations, etc.) is managed in mind maps and these mind maps are utilized for the recommendations. Using content-based filtering methods, Docear's recommender achieves click-through rates around 6%, in some scenarios even over 10%.

Exploring Issues of User Model Transparency and Proactive Behaviour in an Office Environment Control System

Abstract: It is important that systems that exhibit proactive behaviour do so in a way that does not surprise or frustrate the user. Consequently, it is desirable for such systems to be both personalised and designed in such a way as to enable the user to scrutinise her user model (part of which should hold the rules describing the behaviour of the system). This article describes on-going work to investigate the design of a prototype system that can learn a given user's behaviour in an office environment in order to use the inferred rules to populate a user model and support appropriate proactive behaviour (e.g. turning on the user's fan under appropriate conditions). We explore the tension between user control and proactive services and consider issues related to the design of appropriate transparency with a view to supporting user comprehensibility of system behaviour. To this end, our system enables the user to scrutinise and possibly over-ride the `IF-THEN' rules held in her user model. The system infers these rules from the context history (effectively a data set generated using a variety of sensors) associated with the user by using a fuzzy-decision-tree-based algorithm that can provide a confidence level for each rule in the user model. The evolution of the system has been guided by feedback from a number of real-life users in a university department. A questionnaire study has yielded supplementary results concerning the extent to which the approach taken meets users' expectations and requirements.

Security or authentication system and method using manual input measurements, such as via user manipulation of a computer mouse

Abstract: A method and system for analyzing user input for security, authentication or other purposes includes displaying an objective for a user to pursue and receiving user input via a user input device as the displayed objective is pursued, wherein the user input includes manual manipulation of a user input device, such as a mouse. The received user input is then compared to a user profile representing prior manual manipulation of the user input device in pursuit of the displayed objective. Other features and functions are also disclosed, including a method to improve security by permitting multilingual users to employ an alternative language when responding to on-screen prompts.