Summary: User Modelling for Live Help Systems
Johan Aberg, Nahid Shahmehri, and Dennis Maciuszek
Department of Computer and Information Science
Link˜opings universitet, S­581 83 Link˜oping, Sweden
E­mail: {johab,nahsh}@ida.liu.se
Phone, Fax: +46­13­281465, +46­13­282666
Abstract. We have explored the role of user modelling in live help sys­
tems for e­commerce web sites. There are several potential benefits with
user modelling in this context: 1) Human assistants can use the per­
sonal information in the user models to provide the users with e#cient
support tailored to their personal needs; 2) Assistants can be more com­
fortable in their supporting role; 3) Consultation resources can be saved,
and thus, financial savings can be made for the e­commerce company. A
user modelling approach has been implemented and deployed in a real
web environment as part of a live help system. Following the deployment
we have analysed consultation dialogue logs and answers to a question­
naire for participating assistants. This paper elaborates on these results,
which show that assistants consider user modelling to be helpful and that
consultation dialogues can be an important source for user model data
collection. Based on lessons learned from the study, future directions for

Source: Aberg, Johan - Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköpings Universitet

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences