Direct manipulation vs. interface agents

Reviewer: Michael Lee Gordon

Shneiderman and Maes present their views of the way user interfaces should be exposed to people. This article is a transcript of debates between the two of them at the Intelligent User Interface Conference in January 1997 and at CHI 97 in March 1997. Shneiderman proposes direct manipulation and Maes proposes that user agents be provided that offer personalized assistance to individuals. While Shneiderman and Maes may have previously expressed differing views about user interfaces, these debates drew out agreement that there can be a place for both direct manipulation and user agents. Shneiderman wants people to be made aware that agents are acting on their behalf, and to be able to monitor and control them, not have them run autonomously, making decisions for people; the computer is not the active and responsible party. Maes asserts that our computer environments are becoming more and more complex, and that certain tasks or parts of tasks will need to be delegated to agents that can act on our behalf. She says, however, that this technique is complementary to well-designed interfaces, and users still need to be able to bypass the agents when they wish.