Claude Draude analyzes embodied software agents - interface solutions that are designed to talk back and give emotional feedback - from a gender and media studies perspective. She addresses technological and sociocultural concepts in their interplay of shifting the boundary between what is considered as human and what as machine. The author discusses the technological realization of specific personality models that define the design of embodied software agents - emotion and gaze models, in particular. Finally, she explores these models in their broader cultural context by relating them to the prominent topic of the Turing test and the notion of the Uncanny Valley.

Die systematische und interdisziplinare Forschung zu Usability unter Berucksichtigung der Genderperspektive steht noch am Anfang. Dieser Tagungsband dokumentiert dieerste Fachtagung zu diesem Thema im Dt. Raum. Die Beitrage umfassen Beispiele aus Forschung und Praxis, Vorschlage fur gendersensibles Softwaredesign und theoriegegleitete Ansatze zur Reflexion von Geschlecht im Usability-Engineering-Prozess und in der HCI-Forschung."