research-article

Learning About Work Tasks to Inform Intelligent Assistant Design

Authors:

Johanne R. Trippas,

Ahmed Hassan Awadallah,

Paul N. Bennett,

Jonathan Liono,

Flora D. Salim,

Mark SandersonAuthors Info & Claims

CHIIR '19: Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

Pages 5 - 14

https://doi.org/10.1145/3295750.3298934

Published: 08 March 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Intelligent assistants can serve many purposes, including entertainment (e.g. playing music), home automation, and task management (e.g. timers, reminders). The role of these assistants is evolving to also support people engaged in work tasks, in workplaces and beyond. To design truly useful intelligent assistants for work, it is important to better understand the work tasks that people are performing. Based on a survey of 401 respondents' daily tasks and activities in a work setting, we present a classification of work-related tasks, and analyze their key characteristics, including the frequency of their self-reported tasks, the environment in which they undertake the tasks, and which, if any, electronic devices are used. We also investigate the cyber, physical, and social aspects of tasks. Finally, we reflect on how intelligent assistants could influence and help people in a work environment to complete their tasks, and synthesize our findings to provide insight on the future of intelligent assistants in support of amplifying personal productivity.

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Cited By

Morrison KIqbal SHorvitz E(2024)AI-Powered Reminders for Collaborative Tasks: Experiences and FuturesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36537018:CSCW1(1-20)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3653701
Li MPeng BGao JZhang Z(2024)OPERA: Harmonizing Task-Oriented Dialogs and Information Seeking ExperienceACM Transactions on the Web10.1145/362338118:4(1-27)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3623381
Zhang XLiu C(2023)Examination of Information Problem Decomposition Strategies: A New Perspective for Understanding Users' Information Problems in Search as LearningProceedings of the Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval in the Asia Pacific Region10.1145/3624918.3625326(84-94)Online publication date: 26-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3624918.3625326
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Index Terms

Learning About Work Tasks to Inform Intelligent Assistant Design
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Artificial intelligence
    1. Distributed artificial intelligence
      1. Intelligent agents
    2. Natural language processing
      1. Information extraction
2. Information systems
  1. Information retrieval
    1. Retrieval tasks and goals
      1. Information extraction

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Information & Contributors

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHIIR '19: Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

March 2019

463 pages

ISBN:9781450360258

DOI:10.1145/3295750

General Chairs:
Leif Azzopardi
University of Strathclyde, UK
,
Martin Halvey
University of Strathclyde, UK
,
Ian Ruthven
University of Strathclyde, UK
,
Program Chairs:
Hideo Joho
University of Tsukuba, Japan
,
Vanessa Murdock
Amazon, USA
,
Pernilla Qvarfordt
pxq Labs, USA

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 08 March 2019

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Microsoft Research

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CHIIR '19

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CHIIR '19: Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval

March 10 - 14, 2019

Glasgow, Scotland UK

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Cited By

Morrison KIqbal SHorvitz E(2024)AI-Powered Reminders for Collaborative Tasks: Experiences and FuturesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36537018:CSCW1(1-20)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3653701
Li MPeng BGao JZhang Z(2024)OPERA: Harmonizing Task-Oriented Dialogs and Information Seeking ExperienceACM Transactions on the Web10.1145/362338118:4(1-27)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3623381
Zhang XLiu C(2023)Examination of Information Problem Decomposition Strategies: A New Perspective for Understanding Users' Information Problems in Search as LearningProceedings of the Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval in the Asia Pacific Region10.1145/3624918.3625326(84-94)Online publication date: 26-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3624918.3625326
He JPiorkowski DMuller MBrimijoin KHoude SWeisz J(2023)Rebalancing Worker Initiative and AI Initiative in Future Work: Four Task DimensionsProceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work10.1145/3596671.3598572(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3596671.3598572
Williams AIqbal SKiseleva JWhite R(2023)Managing Tasks across the Work–Life Boundary: Opportunities, Challenges, and DirectionsACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/358242930:3(1-31)Online publication date: 31-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582429
Anderson CHeinisch JDeldari SSalim FOhly SDavid KPejović V(2023)Toward Social Role-Based Interruptibility ManagementIEEE Pervasive Computing10.1109/MPRV.2022.322990522:1(59-68)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/MPRV.2022.3229905
Li TLu YClark JChen MCox VJiang MYang YKay TWood DBrockman J(2022)A Bottom-Up End-User Intelligent Assistant Approach to Empower Gig Workers against AI InequalityProceedings of the 1st Annual Meeting of the Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work10.1145/3533406.3533418(1-10)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3533406.3533418
Draxler FBrenner JEska MSchmidt AChuang L(2022)Agenda- and Activity-Based Triggers for MicrolearningProceedings of the 27th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces10.1145/3490099.3511133(620-632)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3490099.3511133
Zhang SWang MBalog KAmigo ECastells PGonzalo JCarterette BCulpepper JKazai G(2022)Analyzing and Simulating User Utterance Reformulation in Conversational Recommender SystemsProceedings of the 45th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval10.1145/3477495.3531936(133-143)Online publication date: 6-Jul-2022
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Kang YRahaman MRen YSanderson MWhite RSalim F(2022)App usage on-the-move: Context- and commute-aware next app predictionPervasive and Mobile Computing10.1016/j.pmcj.2022.10170487(101704)Online publication date: Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmcj.2022.101704
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