# Intelligent user interface > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Intelligent_user_interface > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Intelligent_user_interface.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_user_interface > Source revision: 1347115475 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) User interface type "Interface agent" redirects here. For an intelligent agent that interacts with its environment, see [Embodied agent](/source/Embodied_agent). An **intelligent user interface** (**intelligent UI**, **IUI**, or sometimes **interface agent**) is a [user interface](/source/User_interface) (UI) that involves some aspect of [artificial intelligence](/source/Artificial_intelligence) (AI or computational intelligence). There are many modern examples of IUIs, the most famous (or infamous) being the Microsoft [Office Assistant](/source/Office_Assistant), whose most recognizable agentive representation was called "[Clippy](/source/Clippy)". Generally, an IUI involves the computer-side having sophisticated knowledge of the domain and/or a model of the user. These allow the interface to better understand the user's needs and personalize or guide the interaction. ## History Probably the earliest examples of what could be considered true IUIs appeared in the [Intelligent Computer Assisted Instruction](/source/Intelligent_tutoring_system) (ICAI, aka. [intelligent tutoring systems](/source/Intelligent_tutoring_system)) community, which arose in the 1960s and 1970s[1] and become popular (among academics) in the 1980s. Also, in the early 1980s, as [expert systems](/source/Expert_system) took hold in the AI community, expert systems were applied to UIs (e.g., the aptly-named "WIZARD" system[2]). In the 1990s the application of [plan inference](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plan_inference&action=edit&redlink=1) to interaction formed the basis for research[3] in what then was named [natural interfaces](/source/Natural_user_interface) (the term has later come to evolve to mean full-body interaction). Later IUIs, such as [Clippy](/source/Clippy), are more statistically-based, using [machine learning](/source/Machine_learning) methods to decide how to tune the interactive experience to the individual user. In the 2000s this strand of research often is labeled [personalization](/source/Personalization), most often employing various [recommender system](/source/Recommender_system) techniques to adapt the behavior of an interface or an entire interactive system to individual user preferences. ## Definitional difficulty What constitutes "intelligent" is potentially disputable, as is what counts as an "interface". The field is in practice defined by the community of researchers and the channels they publish in. ## Research Research in intelligent user interfaces is published in general Human-Computer Interaction conferences and journals such as [CHI](/source/Conference_on_Human_Factors_in_Computing_Systems) or [UIST](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UIST_(conference)&action=edit&redlink=1) as well as in some artificial intelligence research channels such as those hosted by the [AAAI](/source/AAAI), but most importantly there are the dedicated conference series on [Intelligent User Interfaces](https://dl.acm.org/conference/iui) (since 1988), [Recommender Systems](https://dl.acm.org/conference/recsys) (since 2007), and [User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization](https://dl.acm.org/conference/umap) as well as the journal [User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction](https://www.springer.com/journal/11257) (since 1990). ## Humanizing cues As practical concept of [social interface design](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_interface_design&action=edit&redlink=1), social interface is seen in the studies of [human-computer interaction](/source/Human-computer_interaction) (in particular, its [computer interface](/source/Computer_interface) aspect). The basic thesis is that where a computer interface is more akin to another human, it can facilitate correct responses from users during human-to-computer interaction. Software that can provide such humanizing cues often does it by creating interface with human-like quality (such as giving recognizable [gender](/source/Gender) to a [software agent](/source/Software_agent)).[4] Studies are often concerned with how should such agents (like the [Microsoft Agent](/source/Microsoft_Agent)) be designed to make them more appealing (is having [facial expressions](/source/Facial_expression) efficient, should the agent be [anthropomorphic](/source/Anthropomorphic), and so on).[5] ## See also - [Natural language user interface](/source/Natural_language_user_interface) - [Chatterbot](/source/Chatterbot) - [Recommender system](/source/Recommender_system) ## References 1. **[^](#cite_ref-BurtonBrown1979_1-0)** Burton, Richard R.; Brown, John Seely (1979). ["An investigation of computer coaching for informal learning activities"](https://web.archive.org/web/20170924160749/http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA061268). *International Journal of Man-Machine Studies*. **11** (1): 5–24. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1016/S0020-7373(79)80003-6](https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0020-7373%2879%2980003-6). [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0020-7373](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0020-7373). Archived from [the original](http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA061268) on September 24, 2017. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-Shrager92_2-0)** Shrager, Jeff; Finin, Tim (1982). ["An expert system that volunteers advice"](https://www.aaai.org/Papers/AAAI/1982/AAAI82-080.pdf) (PDF). *Proc. 2nd Annual National Conf. on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-82)*. Pittsburgh, PA. pp. 339–340. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Cawsey, Alison (1993). ["User modelling in interactive explanations. User Model User-Adap Inter 3, 221–247 (1993)"](https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01257890). *User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction*. **3**. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1007/BF01257890](https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF01257890). [S2CID](/source/S2CID_(identifier)) [5555505](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:5555505). Retrieved 4 January 2023. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** Tourangeau R.; Couper M.P.; Steiger D.M., *Humanizing self-administered surveys: experiments on social presence in web and IVR surveys*, Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 19, Number 1, January 2003, pp. 1-24(24), [\[1\]](http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/07475632/2003/00000019/00000001/art00032) 1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** Michael A. Cusumano, Richard W. Selby, *Microsoft Secrets: How the World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shakes Markets and Manages People*. Simon and Schuster, 1998, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-684-85531-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-684-85531-3), [Google Print, p.178](https://books.google.com/books?id=GixEgGs5qXcC&dq=%22Social+interface%22&pg=PA178) ## Links - [AAAI Conference](http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI/aaai.php) - [International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces](https://dl.acm.org/conference/iui) - [ACM Conference On Recommender Systems](https://dl.acm.org/conference/recsys) - [Journal on User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction](https://www.springer.com/journal/11257) --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Intelligent user interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_user_interface) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_user_interface?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.