Expert Systems: A Computer Consultant Software Application for the 90's

At the present time vendor-saturated markets have forced the drop in computer retail prices allowing a large percentage of today's households to have a computer or enter the market for one. Quite often these consumers call back to support hotlines for help in everything from getting started to troubleshooting various problems associated with computers. In many cases support personnel are swamped with angry, frustrated customers wanting some answers. We have proposed to alleviate problems of overload and inaccessibility by developing an expert system that would emulate a computer consultant to on-line and potential on-line customers. Theoretically, this system could be used by support personnel or by a user interfacing directly either by terminal or modem. This paper will describe our approach to solving this problem as well as the design of an expert system.