Comic Actors representing software agents

Abstract

A growing amount of tasks are expected to be delegated to software agents by human users. Such agents carry personal data of the user and act on his behalf. If mobile software agents leave the users' host, the users are left with an uncomfortable lack of knowledge about and control over "what's going on". The authors believe that an important remedy for this lies in sophisticated visualization of the activities and status of software agents. The paper describes the use of Comic Actors for the visualization of software agents and their activities. A virtual advertising agency is used as an example.