The role of the user
                            in designing
                natural language dialogue interfaces                           

                                  by

                             Paul Mc Kevitt
                     Department of Computer Science
                          University of Exeter
                     Exeter EX4 4PT, United Kingdom
                   E-mail: JANET: pmc@ac.uk.exeter.cs

There are various means by which people express their intentions in
natural language dialogue. Any useful computer program which is meant
to interact with a user through natural language dialogue better have
mechanisms for recognising expressed intention, the different forms in
which it comes, and the relationships between those forms. If this is
not the case the program will appear irrational and the user will become
frustrated. As a step in the direction of determining what expressed
intent is, data from written/interactive dialogues between UNIX users
and a simulated natural-language help system has been analysed.
From initial results it is argued that the recognition of expressed
intention has implications for (1) the generation of rational answers,
(2) the modeling of users, (3) information retrieval, and (4) the
processing of natural language itself. It is believed that one of the
major reasons for the failure of natural language interfaces of the
past has not only been the lack of the recognition of expressed intent
but also the lack of data collection from users.