We describe an approach to user interface design based on ideas from social science, narratology (the theory of stories), cognitive science, and a new area called algebraic semiotics. Social analysis helps to identify certain roles for users with their associated requirements, and suggests ways to make proofs more understandable, while algebraic semiotics, which combines semiotics with algebraic specification, provides rigorous theories for interface functionality and for a certain technical notion of quality. We apply these techniques to designing user interfaces for a distributed cooperative theorem proving system, whose main component is a website generation and proof assistance tool called Kumo. This interface integrates formal proving, proof browsing, animation, informal explanation, and online background tutorials, drawing on a richer than usual notion of proof. Experience with using the interface is reported, and some conclusions are drawn.

This paper describes the Tatami project at UCSD, which is developing a system to support distributed cooperative software development over the web, and in particular, the validation of concurrent distributed software. The main components of our current prototype are a proof assistant, a generator for documentation websites, a database, an equational proof engine, and a communication protocol to support distributed cooperative work. We believe behavioral specification and verification are important for software development, and for this purpose we use first order hidden logic with equational atoms. The paper also briefly describes some novel user interface design methods that have been developed and applied in the project

This paper aims at reviewing narrative approaches and theories in an effort to assess their potential as suitable models for computational implementation within the EU Framework V-funded project VICTEC (Virtual ICT with Empathic Characters). We discuss classical narrative theories as well as envisage alternative interactive models according to the narrative requirements presented by VICTEC. The Emergent Narrative (Aylett, 1999) concept is also defined and referred as an essential element of the VICTEC research project.

ABSTRACT. An important puzzle in the study of complex systems is the conditions under which the aggregation of information from interacting agents results in a stable or an unstable collective outcome. We present a general framework for thinking about the stability and instability of collective outcomes that focuses on the effects of mutual knowledge. We show that if a complex system of aggregated choice respects a mutual knowledge structure, then the prospects of a stable collective outcome are considerably improved. Our domain-independent results apply to collective choice ranging from perception, where an interpretation of sense data is made by a collection of perceptual modules, to social choice, where a group decision is made from a set of preferences held by individuals.

recent advances in web technology, interface design, and specification. Our effort to improve the usability of such systems has led us into algebraic semiotics, while our effort to develop better formal methods for distributed concurrent systems has led us into hidden algebra and fuzzy logic. This paper discusses the Tatami system design, especially its software architecture, and its user interface principles. New work in the latter area includes an extension of algebraic semiotics to dynamic multimedia interfaces, and integrating Gibsonian affordances with algebraic semiotics. 1

In recent years, the fields of Interactive Storytelling and Player Modelling have independently enjoyed increased interest in both academia and the computer games industry. The combination of these technologies, however, remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we present PaSSAGE (Player-Specific Stories via Automatically Generated Events), an interactive storytelling system that uses player modelling to automatically learn a model of the player’s preferred style of play, and then uses that model to dynamically select the content of an interactive story. Results from a user study evaluating the entertainment value of adaptive stories created by our system as well as two fixed, pre-authored stories indicate that automatically adapting a story based on learned player preferences can increase the enjoyment of playing a computer role-playing game for certain types of players.

Abstract. This paper presents a theoretical discussion of semantically enabled technologies that adopt narrative theories to aid knowledge transfer. The paper aims to present the applicability of existing narrative theories as methods of transferring and retrieving knowledge, underlying the importance of semantic mark-up. 1

Interactive narratives have been used in a variety of applications, including video games, educational games, and training simulations. Maintaining engagement within such environments is an important problem, because it affects entertainment, motivation, and presence. Performance arts theorists have discussed and formalized many techniques that increase engagement and enhance dramatic content of art productions. While constructing a narrative manually, using these techniques, is acceptable for linear media, using this approach for interactive environments results in inflexible experiences due to the unpredictability of users ’ actions. Few researchers attempted to develop adaptive interactive narrative experiences. However, developing a quality interactive experience is largely an art process, and many of these adaptive techniques do not encode artistic principles. In this paper, I present a new interactive narrative architecture designed using a set of dramatic techniques that I formulated based on several years of training in film and theatre.

This paper presents a visual editor which supports authors to define the narrative macrostructure of non-linear interactive dramas. This authoring tool was used to represent Propp’s narrative macrostructure of Russian fairy tales in non-linear plot graphs. Moreover, Propp’s thorough characterization of basic narrative constituents by explanations, discussions and examples of their different realizations in his corpus is utilized to construct an automatic classification model. A semi-automatic classification supports (i) authors to associate new scenes with basic narrative constituents and (ii) players to control the narrative flow in the story engine. For the latter task, the selection of an appropriate plot element and behavioral pattern within the dialog model in response to player interactions is controlled by similarities between stimuli and known realizations of basic narrative constituents or behavioral patterns. This approach tackles the main challenge of interactive drama — to balance interactivity and storyness.

The Tatami project is building a system to support software engineering over the internet, exploiting recent advances in web technology, interface design, and specification. Our effort to improve the usability of such systems led us into algebraic semiotics, while our effort to develop better formal methods for distributed concurrent systems led us into hidden algebra. We discuss the Tatami system design, especially user interface issues, and sketch an extension of algebraic semiotics for interface dynamics. 1 Introduction The Tatami project has pursued three main goals: 1. explore novel multimedia interface design principles, for easing the use of complex interactive systems; 2. build and use a generic distributed environment for cooperative work; and 3. verify distributed concurrent software. We discuss these goals in turn. The first is motivated by the difficulties many practicing engineers have with formal methods tools. We have taken theorem provers as a typically difficult c...