Negotiation spaces in human-computer collaborative learning

Dimension 7 : degree of directness

The degree of directness concerns both the functional (user-system) and the intentional (user-author) interactions. In functional interaction, when an agent says for instance to the other "The delay should be 30 seconds", this utterance can be classified as an offer. However, it also constitutes an indirect (and implicit) invitation to start negotiating the delay duration. This possibility is simply a function of the pragmatic interpretation of utterances in a given context. In this case, the interface possibilities are used directly and indirectly simultaneously.

In intentional interaction, directness refers to the extent to which the agents use the interaction possibilities explicitly provided by a system in a manner that corresponds to the intention of the system designer. For instance, in an early design of the C-CHENE system, we provided a button that make a 'beeping' sound, where we intended that the students should use it for maintaining mutual perception, i.e. attracting the attention of the other, verifying that the other was attending. However, the students did not directly use the button in this way: they discussed and agreed on an 'indirect' way of using this button for coordinating interface actions ("use the beep to tell me when you want to draw something on the interface"). This is 'indirectness' from the system designer's point of view. We must therefore distinguish the designer-negotiation-space from the user-negotiation-space, where the latter may often surpass the former. Whilst the space of such a user negotiation space may be predictable by the designer, it is clear that all such possible indirect uses can not be so predicted. In other words, the degree of directness is not a design parameter, but rather something that one can only measure when analysing actual interactions.