An avatar-based help system for a grid computing web portal

We developed a help system that employs an avatar to cover various aspects of user assistance. In addition to assisting users with the completion of specific goals by means of dynamically generated step-by-step guides, the system is also able to provide information concerning elements of the user interface. Furthermore it answers follow-up questions entered by the user. Compared to other systems, our system is able to present help directly on the page the user is currently visiting. It also interacts with the content to help the user in finding pages and interface elements relevant to complete given tasks. According to the user's preference, help is either provided in a textual form or by speech output.