Intelligent Help in a One-Shot Dialog: A Protocol Study

A database of 150 interactions conducted via electronic mail was analyzed. The database had been constructed as an on-line tool for users and advisors, but the interactions can also be regarded as modelling intelligent help dialog in which posing a query and providing a response are each accomplished in "one-shot". The types of questions users ask and the advisory strategies employed for imcomplete queries without follow-up questioning are described. The goal is to understand this new on-line tool for advising and its implications as a model of one-shot intelligent help dialogs.