The Office Assistant is a discontinued intelligent user interface for Microsoft Office that assisted users by way of an interactive animated character which interfaced with the Office help content. It was included in Microsoft Office for Windows (versions 97 to 2003), in Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Project (versions 98 to 2003), Microsoft FrontPage (versions 2002 and 2003), and Microsoft Office for Mac (versions 98 to 2004). The Office Assistant used technology initially from Microsoft Bob and later Microsoft Agent, offering advice based on Bayesian algorithms.
The default assistant in the English version was named Clippit (sometimes later called "Clippy"), after a paperclip. Clippit was the default, and by far the most notable, Assistant (partly because in many cases the setup CD was required to install the other assistants), which also led to it being called simply the Microsoft Paperclip. The Office Assistant and particularly Clippit have been the subject of numerous criticisms and parodies. In November 2021, Microsoft officially updated their design of the paperclip emoji (📎) on Windows 11 to be Clippit.
Description
The Office Assistant was an intelligent user interface for Microsoft Office. It assisted users by way of an interactive animated character that interfaced with the Office help content. It was included in Microsoft Office for Windows (versions 97 to 2003), in Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Project (versions 98 to 2003), Microsoft FrontPage (versions 2002 and 2003), and Microsoft Office for Mac (versions 98 to 2004). The default assistant in the English version was named Clippit, after a paperclip.
Technology
The Office Assistant used technology initially from Microsoft Bob and later Microsoft Agent, offering advice based on Bayesian algorithms. From Office 2000 onward, Microsoft Agent (.acs) replaced the Microsoft Bob-descended Actor (.act) format as the technology supporting the feature. Users can add other assistants to the folder where Office is installed for them to show up in the Office application, or install in the Microsoft Agent folder in System32 folder. Microsoft Agent-based characters have richer forms and colors, and are not enclosed within a boxed window. Furthermore, the Office Assistant could use the Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice Text-to-Speech Engine to provide output speech capabilities to Microsoft Agent, but it required SAPI 4.0. The Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine allowed the Office Assistant to accept speech input.
History
According to Alan Cooper, the "Father of Visual Basic", the concept of Clippit was based on a "tragic misunderstanding" of research conducted at Stanford University, showing that the same part of the brain in use while using a mouse or keyboard was also responsible for emotional reactions while interacting with other human beings and thus is the reason people yell at their computer monitors. Microsoft concluded that if humans reacted to computers the same way they react to other humans, it would be beneficial to include a human-like face in their software. As people already related to computers directly as they do with humans, the added human-like face emerged as an annoying interloper distracting the user from the primary conversation.
First introduced in Microsoft Office 97, the Office Assistant was codenamed TFC during development. It appeared when the program determined the user could be assisted by using Office wizards, searching help, or advising users on using Office features more effectively. It also presented tips and keyboard shortcuts. For example, typing an address followed by "Dear" would cause the Assistant to appear with the message, "It looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like help?"
Microsoft turned off the feature by default in Office XP. The feature was removed altogether in Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac. A small image of Clippit can be found in Office 2013 and newer, which can be seen by going to Options and changing the theme (or Office Background) to "School Supplies". Clippit would then appear on the ribbon.
In July 2021, Microsoft used Twitter to show off a redesign of Clippit, and said that if it received 20,000 likes they would replace the paperclip emoji on Microsoft 365 with the character. The Tweet quickly surpassed 20,000 likes and they then announced they would replace it. In November 2021, Microsoft officially updated their design of the paperclip emoji (📎) on Windows 11 to be Clippit.