Buddies in a box

In this paper it is argued that animated characters in the interaction with consumer electronics products can have four kinds of benefits. They can add fun to the interaction and realise a more enjoyable experience. Animated characters can deploy social behaviour and social rules known from daily life and thus make it more natural and easier to interact with consumer electronic products. Furthermore an animated character can set the right level of expectation and finally they can make system errors and interaction obstacles more acceptableTwo examples are described to illustrate this argumentation. The L-icons are virtual personal friends that live inside the television and that represent a so-called recommendation system. Bello is a virtual pet dog that facilitates voice-controlled interaction for a television set. The evaluation results of two example applications confirm the four arguments, but they also show that the right form of animated character must be application specific in order to come to an optimal match between the characteristics of the character and those of the system they represent