Dynamically generated follow-up questions

Automatic text generators are at the heart of systems that provide users with information. The trick is getting the system to answer follow-up questions as naturally as possible. We have devised a direct manipulation interface that treats system-generated texts as structured objects that users can manipulate. With our interface, users select the portions of system-generated text that they don't understand or want more information about, and the system provides a menu of questions to ask. Question menus, generated on the fly, take into account the user model, underlying knowledge base(s), and the prior discourse context.