Turvy is a simulated prototype of an instructible agent. The user teaches it by demonstrating actions and pointing at or talking about relevant data. We formalized our assumptions about what could be implemented, then used the Wizard of Oz to flesh out a design and observe users' reactions as they taught several editing tasks. We found: a) all users invent a similar set of commands to teach the agent; b) users learn the agent's language by copying its speech; c) users teach simple tasks with ease and complex ones with reasonable effort; and d) agents cannot expect users to point to or identify critical features without prompting.In conducting this rather complex simulation, we learned some lessons about using the Wizard of Oz to prototype intelligent agents: a) design of the simulation benefits greatly from prior implementation experience; b) the agent's behavior and dialog capabilities must be based on formal models; c) studies of verbal discourse lead directly to an implementable system; d) the designer benefits greatly by becoming the Wizard; and e) qualitative data is more valuable for answering global concerns, while quantitative data validates accounts and answers fine-grained questions.

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Metamouse is a device enabling the user of a drawing program to specify graphical procedures by supplying example execution traces. The user manipulates objects directly on the screen, creating graphical tools where necessary to help make constraints explicit; the system records the sequence of actions and induces a procedure. Generalization is used both to identify the key features of individual program steps, disregarding coincidental events; and to connect the steps into a program graph, creating loops and conditional branches as appropriate. Metamouse operates within a 2D click-and-drag drafting package, and incorporates a strong model of the relative imporlance of different types of graphical constraint. Close attention is paid to user interface aspects, and Metamouse helps the user by predicting and performing actions, thus reducing the tedium of repetitive graphical editing tasks.

Metamouse is a device enabling the user of a drawing program to specify graphical procedures by supplying example execution traces. The user manipulates objects directly on the screen, creating graphical tools where necessary to help make constraints explicit; the system records the sequence of actions and induces a procedure. Generalization is used both to identify the key features of individual program steps, disregarding coincidental events; and to connect the steps into a program graph, creating loops and conditional branches as appropriate. Metamouse operates within a 2D click-and-drag drafting package, and incorporates a strong model of the relative imporlance of different types of graphical constraint. Close attention is paid to user interface aspects, and Metamouse helps the user by predicting and performing actions, thus reducing the tedium of repetitive graphical editing tasks.

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