appropriate intelligence

Appropriate intelligence is a design heuristic for intelligent user interfaces. When creating an intelligent interface the temptation is to focus on making the AI as good as possible, but it is usually more important to make sure that the interaction designed around the AI creates an overall system that works well. In particular, it is important that when the AI fails (which it will!) this does not overly inconvenience the user. Positive examples incude the Microsoft Excel AutoSum (Σ) and the design of onCue, whereas Clippy is an example of poor use of intelligence as it interupted the user's workflow.