This paper presents a new experimental paradigm for the study of human-computer interaction, Five experiments provide evidence that individuals' interactions with computers are fundamentally social. The studies show that social responses to computers are not the result of conscious beliefs that computers are human or human-like. Moreover, such behaviors do not result from users' ignorance or from psychological or social dysfunctions, nor from a belief that subjects are interacting with programmers. Rather, social responses to computers are commonplace and easy to generate. The results reported here present numerous and unprecedented hypotheses, unexpected implications for design, new approaches to usability testing, and direct methods for verii3cation.

In this study 2,684 people evaluated the credibility of two live Web sites on a similar topic (such as health sites). We gathered the comments people wrote about each siteís credibility and analyzed the comments to find out what features of a Web site get noticed when people evaluate credibility. We found that the ìdesign lookî of the site was mentioned most frequently, being present in 46.1% of the comments. Next most common were comments about information structure and information focus. In this paper we share sample participant comments in the top 18 areas that people noticed when evaluating Web site credibility. We discuss reasons for the prominence of design look, point out how future studies can build on what we have learned in this new line of research, and outline six design implications for human-computer interaction professionals.

This paper presents a new experimental paradigm for the study of human-computer interaction.Five experiments provide evidence that individuals' interactions with computem are fundamentally social. The studies show that social responses to computers are not the result of conscious beliefs that computers are human or human-like. Moreover, such behaviors do not result from users' ignorance or from psychological or social dysfunctions, nor from a belief that subjects are interacting with programmers.Rather, social responses to computers are commonplace and easy to generate. The results reported here present numerous and unprecedented hypotheses, unexpected implications for design, new approaches to usability testing, and direct methods for verifkation.The design of richly informative interfaces would benefit from an account of how visual forms convey information.In this paper we suggest that the study of form-giving in Industrial Engineering might provide a foundation for such an account. We present three studies of designed synesthesia, in which objects' forms indicate non-visible attributes such as taste or smell. These studies illustrate the rich possibilities for conveying information with form, possibilities which are routinely exploited in industrial design. We believe that similax opportunities exist for interface design, and that further studies of form-giving may help in taking advantage of them. Results of a student exercise expressing computer metaphors in 3D forms will be discussed.204

Attempts to generate anthropomorphic responses to computers have been based on complex, agent-based interfaces. This study provides experimental evidence that minimal social cues can induce computer-literate individuals to use social rules-praise of others is more valid than praise of self, praise of others is friendlier than pmise of self, and criticism of others is less friendly than criticism of self-to evaluate the performance of computers. We also demonstrate that different voices are treated as distinct agents.

No abstract