Volume 1, Number 2


 

An adaptive user interface model for contact centre software applications
Calitz, A.P. and Welcome, B.A.

A contact centre (CCs) is an important component of a modern business and is the primary interaction point between a business and its customers. An important challenge for a CC is to reduce the time which contact centre agents (CCAs) take to retrieve information and to answer customer queries. CCAs, however, have different capabilities, experience and expertise. Studies have provided empirical evidence that user performance can be improved when the computer user interface (UI) characteristics match the level of the user’s skills. As a result, software application interfaces have to be individualised to cater for different users.

The users’ expertise and skill affects the way in which they interact with and use software. It is thus envisaged that an adaptive user interface (AUI), which dynamically changes from a novice UI to an expert UI could possibly improve users’ performance. This research focuses on applying this concept of AUIs to the domain of CCs and investigates whether an AUI for CCAs could improve the CCA’s performance and improve interaction with the UI. A model was proposed for AUIs which was applied to the domain of CCs. The proposed AUI model was implemented and evaluated in a business contact centre. The results indicate that the proposed AUI model significantly improves CCAs’ performance and the CCA’s were satisfied with the adaptive user interface provided.

Keywords: Architectures, Contact Centres, Adaptive User Interfaces, User Models