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162 Chapter 5 Understanding how interfaces affect users

and movements as a way of conveying and drawing attention to an emotional state
of a character.

Mode of interaction
The way the character communicates with the user is also important. One approach
has been towards emulating human conversations as much as possible to make the
character's way of talking more convincing. However, as mentioned in the debate
above, a drawback of this kind of masquerading is that people can get annoyed eas-
ily and feel cheated. Paradoxically, a more believable and acceptable dialog with a
virtual character may prove to be one that is based on a simple art@cial mode of in-
teraction, in which prerecorded speech is played at certain choice points in the in-
teraction and the user's responses are limited to selecting menu options. The
reason why this mode of interaction may ultimately prove more effective is because
the user is in a better position to understand what the agent is capable of doing.
There is no pretence of a stupid agent pretending to be a smart human.

Assignment
This assignment requires you to write a critique of the persuasive impact of virtual sales agents
on customers. Consider what it would take for a virtual sales agent to be believable, trustwor-
thy, and convincing, so that customers would be reassured and happy to buy something based
on its recommendations.
(a) Look at some e-commerce sites that use virtual sales agents (use a search engine to
find sites or start with Miss Boo at boo.com, which was working at time of printing)
and answer the following:
What do the virtual agents do?
What type of agent are they?
Do they elicit an emotional response from you? If so, what is it?
What kind of personality do they have?
How is this expressed?
What kinds of behavior do they exhibit?
What are their facial expressions like?
What is their appearance like? Is it realistic or cartoon-like?
Where do they appear on the screen?
How do they communicate with the user (text or speech)?
Is the level of discourse patronizing or at the right level?
Are the agents helpful in guiding the customer towards making a purchase?
Are they too pushy?
What gender are they? Do you think this makes a difference?
Would you trust the agents to the extent that you would be happy to buy a prod-
uct from them? If not, why not?
What else would it take to make the agents persuasive?