AGNETA & FRIDA: Browsing, Narrative and Emotion Per Persson Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS), Box 1263, S-164 29 Kista, Sweden perp@sics.se ABSTRACT The AGNETA & FRIDA system tries to incorporate narratives and emotions into hypermedia browsing. In contrast to other anthropomorphic agents, Agneta and Frida try to distance themselves from the technology and computer culture. Also, two agents in the interface provide a better behavior dynamic than just one. Keywords AGNETA & FRIDA, agents, narratives, emotion, web design, anthropomorphic interfaces INTRODUCTION In the last years autonomous agents have attracted increasing attention in educational and entertainment systems, and in the general field of artificial intelligence. These systems display mostly single characters facing the user and helps her guides her into the information-action space [cf. 5]. The AGNETA & FRIDA system aims at expanding these ambitions into the web browsing situation and present new ways to look at character design. DESCRIPTION PROTOTYPE OF THE AGNETA & FRIDA On the user’s personal desktop are placed two animated females (mother and daughter), sitting in their living-room chairs, watching the browser (more or less like watching television). The motoric or verbal behaviors of the characters are triggered by three sorts of cues. Firstly, behaviors are connected to the user’s activity (onload, onclick, on mouseover) and document content (text, imagery, sound files, error messages, browser malfunctions etc.). These comments can be general everyday speculations to what something on a site means, or what the purpose with the site is or how they like the design [ill. 1]. Agneta & Frida are also very skeptical to computer culture in general and its male dominance in particular. Humor and irony are main features in their dialogues. Of course, in the demo the connection between behaviors and content is hard coded (in specifically chosen set of about 40 websites), but in the future one could imagine text comprehension software that produced some sort of understanding of text and images and then automatically triggered an appropriate behavior. None of these behaviors are repetitive – once executed they will not come back. Another set of behaviors/comments are of a more general character, unrelated to content or user’s activity. This includes blinking, picking noses, going to the toilet/kitchen, drinking coffee or general gossiping about uncle Harry and Miss Andersson (the owner of a repulsive poodle that often enters Agneta and Frida's back yard, and about which they occasionally fantasize killing). Some of these are repetitive (e.g. blinking, yawning), and they are triggered at certain intervals when there are no other behaviors rolling. Thirdly, the user can choose to let small narratives run through the browsing session, interweaving with the two types above. So far, the prototype provides one comedy ("Poodles: Cute Fluff or Ambassadors of Evil?") and one melodrama. By clicking on the right mouse button the user is presented with a menu in which she can make the choice between different genres and titles. The intensity of all these behaviors can be regulated by the user depending on the browsing purposes (serious information seeking, wayfinding, exploration or entertainment browsing etc.). Through a pop up menu, the user can set the level of activity (1-5) which to different degrees disconnects some behaviors and defines Illustration 1. Agneta & Frida reacting to the contents of the web site of a film production company. the time interval between the remianing ones. Another feature is a search engine situated in their living room drawer on the right hand side of the screen. Here the user cannot only search for words in the documents as a usual search engine, but also for words in the Agneta and Frida comments history, and then be presented with the page in question. The user might better remember a joke or a story of an image/page, rather than the information as such, which might be helpful when trying to find her way back. As the demo is implemented on a set of websites about independent film production companies, and thus aims at people in the age range of 15-25, the comments, stories and behaviors of Agneta and Frida are designed with this target group in mind. Another target audience or another purpose with the site will for sure require other types of behaviors. The fact that AGNETA & FRIDA contains two character/agents, differs from most agent system, which display only one. In comparison to monologue, dialogue makes comments and behavior, and not least, humor and irony, more natural and dynamic. RATIONALES Thus, AGNETA & FRIDA is more about character design, than a new software tool (we have been using Microsoft Agent Tool [7] and JavaScript). In this respect, the project takes its cues from three theoretical directions. First, browsing the web or many types of hypermedia does not encourage the user to infer connections between nodes. The abstract nature of the information makes it difficult for users to relate information 'events', particularly users with low spatial ability [4, 2, 10], and this might contribute to the 'lost in hyperspace' experience. In contrast, a narrative, which also consists of information 'nodes' (events, actions etc.), cues the reader/spectator to create a rich mental model consisting of spatial, temporal and foremost causal connections between the explicit information given in the text [3, 6]. By annotating information nodes with a story or a joke and having narratives run over a whole browsing session, AGNETA & FRIDA encourages the user to construct a mental model of browsing that downplays the spatial and navigational aspects of hypermedia, and emphasizes the temporal-linear of narrative, hopefully without sacrificing the freedom and interactivity. In the evaluation studies (See Höök, Sjölinder, Ereback & Persson, this workshop), the metaphors chosen by the subjects to describe their experince (in spatial, abstract or narrative terms), will one litmus-paper on whether this ambition was fullfilled or not. Second, the regained interest in emotional and affective sides of computing maintains that the intimate interaction between cognition and emotion is a fundamental aspect of everyday life as well as human-computer interaction [e.g. 8, 9]. Emotions include irony, humor, delight etc., but in connection to narratives, moral judgment of characters (bad guy-good guy), suspense, empathy, surprise and fear are just as important. The comments and stories of Agneta and Frida, will hopefully trigger emotional annotations to the information nodes, which will not only enhance memory of this information (emotional ‘landmarks’ in information space), but also transform the way the user look at information. Third, Agneta and Frida introduce irony and reflexivity into the interface. Through history, new media have always taken themselves very seriously (cf. with the first years of film and television) and the computer is no exception in this respect. Computers and public software are still considered to be very serious and important things and agents are still extremely polite and have no time to comment or make fun of their own activities or faults. In contrast, Agneta and Frida make remarks on the shortcomings of the system, acknowledge the frustration of a user encountering 'file-not-found' messages and make fun of clumsy design. It is not a coincidence that Agneta and Frida mostly face the browser along with us, rather than looking out towards us. Agneta and Frida are on 'the user's side' of the screen and the distancing mood in many comments emphasizes this feature. SUMMARY The Microsoft Agent provide a tool for introducing interactive characters into the browsing interface, both as educators, marketing agents, guides or entertainers (where Agneta & Frida seem to land in-between the two latter categories). But neither technology nor programming is going to be the major obstacle in making these acceptable for a wider group of users. The effort to make users want to stay in information space will depend on the design of agents, including their attitudes, humor and distance vis-à-vis problems of technology in general and of human computer interaction in particular. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was a part of the PERSONA project, within EU's long term research program, i3. The prototype was made in appreciated corporation with Jarmo Laaksolahti and Christian Jonasson. Oskar Andersson made the animations. Kia Höök commented constructively on this paper. REFERENCES 1. Benyon, D. & Höök, K. (1997). Navigation in Information spaces: supporting the individual, Paper presented at INTERACT ‘97, Australia. 2. Benyon, D. & Murray, D.M. (1993). Adaptive Systems; from Intelligent Tutoring to Autonomous Agents, Knowledge-based Systems, 6 (3). 3. Bordwell, David (1985). Narration in the Fiction Film, London: Routledge. 4. Dahlbäck, N., Höök, K. & Sjölinder, M. (1996). 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