Automatic reasoning and help about human errors in using an operating system

Human errors occur frequently in the interaction of a user with an operating system. However, current user interfaces of operating systems lack some reasoning ability about user’s intentions and beliefs. Intelligent Help Systems (IHS) can provide additional reasoning and help. This paper presents a discussion of the features of IHSs and a review of a few IHSs for users of operating systems. Then it describes the research and results of employing a cognitive theory of Human Plausible Reasoning Theory in error diagnosis for users interacting with an operating system. This theory has formalised the reasoning based on similarities, generalisations and specialisations that people use to make plausible guesses about questions. Here we exploit the fact that plausible guesses can be incorrect and thus turned into human errors. The error diagnosis is performed by the user modelling component of an IHS, called RESCUER.