Minimalist explanations in knowledge-based systems

Research in discourse comprehension and human-computer interaction indicates that good explanations are usually brief. A system that provides brief explanations, however, must plan for the case where brevity comes at the expense of understanding. Human-to-human dialogue is, to a large part, concerned with conversational repair and question-answer episodes; computer systems need to provide similar fallback techniques to their users. The authors have designed such an explanation system in the context of a knowledge-based critiquing system, LISP-CRITIC. The system provides several levels of explanations, specifically tailored to the user. If the initial, brief explanation is insufficient, the system positions the user at an appropriate point within a more complete, hypertext-based documentation system. Rather than attempting to design a system that can generate a perfect one-shot explanation for any given situation, this approach concentrates on matching the communication abilities provided by current computer technology to the cognitive needs of the human user