An expert system has questions to help readers quickly find the path of the correct action, without requiring them to ponder all the alternatives.
 
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Do You Have
Elephants in Your Garden?
An elephant striding through a garden
A whimsical expert system Just what could it mean when you hear that mysterious trumpeting in the night? Could you have elephants in your garden? Eliminate all the wrong possibilities, and what remains is, however improbable, what you're left with!

What is an Expert System, and Why Would You
Want One?

An expert system makes someone without expert knowledge take the actions an expert would take in a particular situation. It can, at best, distil expertise and make anyone using it an "instant expert." It is useful in situations where more people are required to handle a situation than can be expected to have the level of expertise, or where many people with expertise need to be coordinated in a predictable way. 		Now try a real expert system: using the Coriosolite Expert System, a nine-year-old girl can catalogue these ancient Celtic coins five times faster than the top French numismatist!
Identify real or virtual coins and discover the ancient Celts through their art and myths. This revolutionary method takes you into the minds of individual artists who lived in Brittany 2000 years ago.
When there is one way to do something, or alternative ways are trivial variations, a manual is the simplest way to record instructions. When what needs to be done depends on gathering information regarding people, equipment, and the results of previous actions, writing all this information in an ordinary manual will overwhelm and confuse your readers.

How Does an Expert System Work?

An expert system has questions to help readers quickly find the path of the correct action, without requiring them to ponder all the alternatives. An expert system takes users through a series of steps, varied according to the specific situations they are dealing with. This is particularly useful for emergencies, ordinary troubleshooting, or ongoing maintenance.

An expert system eliminates confusion, leading the reader to only those instructions relevant at the time. While we can and do design expert systems for use on computers, we recommend every computer expert system have a backup system on paper: the paper version can be relied on in times of equipment shortage, failure, or power blackouts -- times when you need every help you can get.

How Long Does it Take to Learn to Use an Expert System?

A well-designed expert system can be used almost immediately on computer; a paper system needs only a few minutes to become familiar with the way that you turn to the various alternatives. After all, Choose Your Own Adventure books, popular with pre-teens, use a very simple form of a paper expert system, where the reader turns to a particular page depending on the choice his character makes. In the same way, a 911 worker finds the right questions to ask an emergency caller in order to give the best emergency first aid advice in the time before the ambulance arrives. This simple tool is extremely effective in practice.

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