Knowledge-based help systems

Our research goals are to understand the nature of, construct and evaluate intelligent interfaces as knowledge-based systems. In this paper we demonstrate the need for help systems as an essential part of human-computer communication. Help strategies are based on a model of the task (to understand what the user is doing or which goals he/she 1 wants to achieve) and a model of the user (to guarantee that these systems are non-intrusive and that they pay attention to the needs of individual users). We illustrate that passive and active help systems have to be constructed as knowledge-based systems. Two operational systems (PASSIVIST and ACTIVIST) are described to show the usefulness of this approach.