A voluntary advertisement for Microsoft Agent

A voluntary advertisement for Microsoft Agent

I knew Microsoft Agent recently when I was messing around surfing platform SDK documentation for some funny windows features to make use of. The minute I set eyes on the title “Microsoft Agent” I thought it would be a framework for developing network application. Then, when I knew I was wrong, also I knew I’ve found some technology cool enough for me to have an in-depth sight.

Anybody who had used Microsoft Word 97 wouldn’t feel strange about the picture above. This picture shows one of the very few examples of Microsoft Agent usage – who else is using this in their application? From a programmer’s perspective of view, this darling paperclip shows a great potential in improving the way application interact with users. Today’s software usually has much more functionality than the ones users need. The button a beginner user wants to click is always hiding in a huge set of advanced features, complex options and other thing provided by over-warm-hearted software developers, so to help users get started become a big challenge for software developers. This paperclip above is a perfect example to guide the user to learn the features on writing letters. Guessing the user may be writing a letter, the paperclip think the best opportunity to exhibit their “Letter assistant” feature has come!

However, Microsoft didn’t make good use of there cool idea. The stupid paperclip gives no usable tip on using Microsoft Word. Microsoft has an “Office Usability Improvement Program”, maybe from the feedbacks they collect through this program they found that the first thing a user do after he starts Microsoft Word is to turn off this annoying paperclip. So in Office XP released in 2001, they removed it, and about why they did that they made up a fairly reasonable reason.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2001/apr01/04-11clippy.mspx

Then yes, in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Agent is completely a failure. But does that mean Microsoft Agent itself is a technology of no advantage? The reason why the use of Microsoft Agent in Microsoft Office is a failure is that Microsoft, inventor of Microsoft Agent, is a good introducer of the new way to interact, but not a good practicer. Microsoft did nothing further but just put the search box and search results in a balloon window, but that’s nothing new.

In this article I won’t spend time to discuss why the evolution Microsoft thought they included in their Office is in fact not. Nor will I say how it can be improved. Despite its failure in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Agent is a technology innovative and with big potentiality. The aim of Microsoft Agent is to help developers develop conversation based interactions. All robots in science fiction films are best examples of conversation based interactions. The “terminator” is one of the most famous robots in movies. This man may have a fan in Microsoft staffs and as a result made Microsoft to simulate him on Microsoft Windows.

An overview of the technology

So to achieve this on desktop, in Microsoft Agent, they provide mainly three components:

1. A set of animated characters, to act as the more natural user interface.

Because Microsoft doesn’t want to terminate Windows, the characters they provide are no killers like “Terminator”. They are nice, darling, and always with a smile.

2. A TTS (Text to Speech) engine, to replace the traditional text output to sound output, like we talk with each other every day.

This feature has exceeded the technology which is supposed to show up in late 2080. We know “terminator” can just speak a dull voice with an unchangeable tune. Microsoft Agent utilize quite advanced linguistic technologies.

1. Questions are not spoken like remarks. (That’s what the cool “terminator” does.).

2. You can specify which word to emphasis, for example:

“Please /Emp/ pay first!”

This feature is quite useful if the restaurant using your application has a customer who forgets to pay his bill often.

3. A voice command recognition engine, to replace traditional mouse and keyboard user input.

This feature seems need improvement if Microsoft wants to beat the “terminator”. The speech recognition engine can just pick out which command you are most likely to execute. However, this functionality is sufficient with most cases.

A typical usage

Well, for example, when some one is ordering a dish online. He would feel quite fresh about the boy greeting him.

Then you said with your micro phone.

Now you finished your order.

A pleasant experience, isn’t it?

Conclusion

Although never been popular since its first release from Microsoft – even its pre-existence, Microsoft Bob came out to be a failure; Microsoft Agent is an evolution in the history of user interaction development. The issue is the people who use it, not the technology itself. Just build your next project on Microsoft Agent to give your customer the best experience they’ll ever have!