“HUMAN-LIKE INTERACTION CONTEST” DESIGN COMPETITION 2007 An International Design Competition sponsored by Kallideas Group

INTRODUCTION

The virtual agent is an automated front-end agent that is playing an emerging role in helping companies build smart and customer-friendly self-service on the web, on the phone, on mobile devices also through video-call, thus integrating and assisting contact center agents.

Nowadays Virtual Assistants (VA) offer online users entertaining, yet competent professional services: for example browserbased consulting systems can be used from any computer to help in the area of customer care to reduce service inquiries. Natural language interaction, online translation, 3D-avatar technology and artificial intelligence create a powerful instrument to enable innovative services that are likely to find a wide acceptance among users. For example, the experience of an online and live communication, simulating a personal one-to-one dialogue with an avatar of an advisor, can provide personal and entertaining opportunities of use. However the simplicity of interaction, the possibility of seamless integration into existing platforms and workflows, the very human-like nature of the avatar users, as well as the use of natural language to navigate within the application is an extremely remarkable challenge. The development of intelligent persona systems using innovative application designs often leads to new technological problems. The more the advisor looks and behaves human-like, the more users will expect in terms of flexibility, knowledge and intelligence. Increasing the intelligence of a system usually involves adding knowledge sources and processes to handle them. The result is another challenge: ways to improve the filtering, indexing, retrieval and presentation of relevant external knowledge, for example documents from websites, as a natural continuation of the dialogue.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The goal of this design competition is to select a Human-like Interaction concept that better address the above mentioned challenges. The winning design will be presented at Frontiers of Interaction III (Milan, 28 June 2007) and CHI Italy (Padua, 30 June 2007).

The design challenge facing the competitors is to create an innovative, state-of-the-art design that responds to clear human requirements while meeting the technical performance.

The Kallideas group is sponsoring this international design competition as the best means to achieve the following objectives:

• Seek out and identify new ideas for Human-like Interaction applications in the area of Health care, Learning, Business, Public services.
• Define concepts which specifically address issues related to trust in, efficiency, reliability and engagement with Human-like Virtual Assistants.
• To envision cutting edge technologies fostering networking opportunities for VA with current data bases for public services.
• To study blended solutions integrating Human and Human-like On-line Assistants.

An additional design challenge is to create an imaginative, cost-effective, and enduring design with the capability, over time, to become a real widely used product.

REGISTRATION

Individuals (graduate and Phd students, researchers, practitioners and professionals) and teams may register by writing an email to: vaconcept2007@kallideas.it before stage 1 submission deadline, April 2nd, 2007. Competitors will receive a unique identification number by e-mail.

COMPETITION FORMAT

The Human-like Interaction Concept Competition is a two-stage international selection process to determine the design of an innovative VA concept.

Stage I of the Competition requires to submit an abstract illustrating their design approach and concept (deadline 2 April 2007). The Jury will review all of the Stage I Submissions in order to select eight Stage II Competitors. Competitors in Stage II will be asked to develop their designs in much greater detail (web-based presentation), based upon their Stage I Submissions (deadline 2 May 2007). The Jury will then select three Competitors as the first three place winners at the conclusion of Stage II (28 May 2007). The finalists will be contacted by the Jury and asked to prepare a 15 min talk to be presented at a special session of Frontiers of Interaction III (Milan, 28 June 2007) and at CHI Italy (Padua, 30 June 2007).