Agent-based support for public information kiosks

KIMSAC-Kiosk-based Integrated Multimedia Service Access for Citizens-is a project supported by the EU´s ACTS programme. It aims to provide a flexible way for citizens to access intricate and complex information provided on public information kiosks. To provide a high degree of usability, the concept of a personal service assistant (PSA) is used in this project, and is realised through adding the agent dimension to a multimedia presentation. Although the concept of the PSA is to help the client during an interactive session with the system, that is, attempting to determine the competence of the user and so modify the interface accordingly, the authors expect more from the PSA. The characteristics which a PSA should exhibit are, to be able to (a) carry out dialogue with the client, (b) provide a tone which builds trust in the client, (c) assist the client at varying levels of interface interaction (d) give assistance when the client has problems or the presentation fails and (e) let the client take control when appropriate