{"id":593965,"date":"2019-06-19T16:20:10","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T23:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-project&p=593965"},"modified":"2022-03-21T10:22:44","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T17:22:44","slug":"perspectives-engine","status":"publish","type":"msr-project","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/perspectives-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"Perspectives Engine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Perspectives Engine<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Adding relatable references for large numerical values<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

In 1994, Bill Gates (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> wanted to show people how much information could fit on a CD-ROM. Instead of using the then unfamiliar measurement of 700 megabytes, he published a picture of himself suspended in the treetops (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> above giant stacks of paper hundreds of feet tall\u2014the amount of pages a CD can hold. Bill\u2019s photograph put an unfamiliar number into perspective to help people grasp it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Graphic<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Our research has shown that adding relatable references for large numerical values makes information easier to understand and increases retention. The Perspective Engine is an AI tool that automates the process of putting giant and unfamiliar numbers into familiar context. It is already live in Bing (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, where it improves the answer to questions like “How big is Afghanistan?” by supplementing “251,827 square miles” with the context “about the size of Texas” for US readers. It puts demographics, nutritional information, fuel efficiency and much more into perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perspective Engine is integrated into PowerPoint Designer and can recognize when a slide contains a large number that might be difficult to interpret and put the number into context by automatically augmenting the text with a corresponding perspective to help your audience understand the slide better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Animated<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Perspectives are also available in Word Online as part of Word’s Editor feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"animation<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\"Bing<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Goal<\/strong>: Enhance the quality of \u201cinstant answer\u201d search results by providing perspectives to put unfamiliar numbers into context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Approach<\/strong>: Develop statistical models for generating perspectives and test them against several alternatives, \ufb01nding bene\ufb01cial effects of perspectives on comprehension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Results<\/strong>: Integrated into Bing (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Microsoft<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Goal<\/strong>: Make it easier for authors and their audiences to convey information about difficult to understand numbers in their presentations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Approach<\/strong>: Perspectives in Designer offers perspectives for large, hard to grasp numbers and figures. This showcases the ability to create even more impactful and effective slides for our users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Results<\/strong>: Integrated into PowerPoint<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Microsoft<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Goal<\/strong>: Make it easier for Word users to convey information about difficult to understand numbers in their documents<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Approach<\/strong>: Perspectives has been incorporated as a type of suggestion in the Word Editor pane. This feature highlights potentially confusing numbers in documents. It then provides easy-to-understand perspective phrases that can be inserted inline to help people better understand what they\u2019re writing or reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Results<\/strong>: Integrated into Word Editor<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Perspective Engine is an AI tool that automates the process of putting giant and unfamiliar numbers into familiar context. It is already live in Bing, where it improves the answer to questions like \"How big is Afghanistan?\" by supplementing \"251,827 square miles\" with the context \"about the size of Texas\" for US readers. It puts demographics, nutritional information, fuel efficiency and much more into perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":594034,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"research-area":[13556],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-593965","msr-project","type-msr-project","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-locale-en_us","msr-archive-status-active"],"msr_project_start":"2019-06-19","related-publications":[594025,594019,215388],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-groups":[144903],"related-events":[],"related-opportunities":[],"related-posts":[],"related-articles":[],"tab-content":[{"id":0,"name":"Product integration","content":"[row]\r\n\r\n[column class=\"m-col-4-24\"]\"Bing [\/column] [column class=\"m-col-20-24\"]\r\n\r\nGoal<\/strong>: Enhance the quality of \u201cinstant answer\u201d search results by providing perspectives to put unfamiliar numbers into context.\r\n\r\nApproach<\/strong>: Develop statistical models for generating perspectives and test them against several alternatives, \ufb01nding bene\ufb01cial effects of perspectives on comprehension.\r\n\r\nResults<\/strong>: Integrated into Bing<\/a>\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n[\/column]\r\n\r\n[\/row]\r\n[row]\r\n\r\n[column class=\"m-col-4-24\"]\"Microsoft [\/column] [column class=\"m-col-20-24\"]\r\n\r\nGoal<\/strong>: Make it easier for authors and their audiences to convey information about difficult to understand numbers in their presentations.\r\n\r\nApproach<\/strong>: Perspectives in Designer offers perspectives for large, hard to grasp numbers and figures. This showcases the ability to create even more impactful and effective slides for our users.\r\n\r\nResults<\/strong>: Integrated into PowerPoint<\/a>\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n[\/column]\r\n\r\n[\/row]\r\n\r\n[row]\r\n\r\n[column class=\"m-col-4-24\"]\"Microsoft [\/column] [column class=\"m-col-20-24\"]\r\n\r\nGoal<\/strong>: Make it easier for Word users to convey information about difficult to understand numbers in their documents\r\n\r\nApproach<\/strong>: Perspectives has been incorporated as a type of suggestion in the Word Editor pane. This feature highlights potentially confusing numbers in documents. It then provides easy-to-understand perspective phrases that can be inserted inline to help people better understand what they\u2019re writing or reading.\r\n\r\nResults<\/strong>: Integrated into Word Editor.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n[\/column]\r\n\r\n[\/row]\r\n\r\n "}],"slides":[],"related-researchers":[{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Dan Goldstein","user_id":31618,"people_section":"Section name 0","alias":"dgg"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Jake Hofman","user_id":32340,"people_section":"Section name 0","alias":"jmh"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Rafah Hosn","user_id":36783,"people_section":"Section name 0","alias":"raaboulh"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Chinmay Singh","user_id":36750,"people_section":"Section name 0","alias":"chsingh"}],"msr_research_lab":[199571],"msr_impact_theme":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/593965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-project"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/593965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1142710,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/593965\/revisions\/1142710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=593965"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=593965"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=593965"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=593965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}