How to Serve Soup: Interleaving Demonstration and Assisted Editing to Support Nonprogrammers

Citation

Gervasio, M., Haines, W., Morley, D., Lee, T. J., Overholtzer, C. A., Saadati, S., & Spaulding, A. (2011, February). How to serve soup: interleaving demonstration and assisted editing to support nonprogrammers. In Proceedings of the 16th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces (pp. 331-334).

Abstract

The Adept Task Learning system is an end-user programming environment that combines programming by demonstration and direct manipulation to support customization by nonprogrammers. Previously, Adept enforced a rigid procedure-authoring workflow consisting of demonstration followed by editing. However, a series of system evaluations with end users revealed a desire for more feedback during learning and more flexibility in authoring. We present a new approach that interleaves incremental learning from demonstration and assisted editing to provide users with a more flexible procedure-authoring experience. The approach relies on maintaining a “soup” of alternative hypotheses during learning, propagating user edits through the soup, and suggesting repairs as needed. We discuss the learning and reasoning techniques that support the new approach and identify the unique interaction design challenges they raise, concluding with an evaluation plan to resolve the design challenges and complete the improved system.


Read more from SRI

  • surgeons around a surgical robot

    The SRI research behind today’s surgical robotics

    Intuitive’s da Vinci 5 system represents a major leap in robotic-assisted medicine. It all started at SRI, which continues to advance teleoperation technologies.

  • a collage of digital graphs

    A banner year for quantum

    SRI-managed QED-C’s annual report on quantum trends captures an industry accelerating rapidly from technical promise toward major global impact.

  • ICE Cube containing SRI’s aerogel experiment, photographed prior to launch. Source: Aerospace Applications North America

    An SRI carbon capture experiment launches into space

    By synthesizing carbon-absorbing aerogels in microgravity, SRI research will give us a rare glimpse into how these materials could be radically improved.