Personalization User Attitudes Regarding a User-Adaptive eCommerce Web Site Personalizing the User Experience on ibm.com Impacts of User Privacy Preferences

PersonalizationPersonalization

User Attitudes Regarding a User-Adaptive eCommerce Web Site

Personalizing the User Experience on ibm.com

Impacts of User Privacy Preferences on Personalized Systems – a Comparative Study

Frans [email protected]

ICS 206Spring 2003

06/03/2003Frans Faizal ([email protected])2


User Attitudes Regarding a User-Adaptive User Attitudes Regarding a User-Adaptive eCommerce Web SiteeCommerce Web Site

Personalizing the User Experience on ibm.comPersonalizing the User Experience on ibm.com



Describes user studies that focused on the perceived value of a variety of personalization features for an eCommerce Web site for computing machinery sales and support.

Describes how the results of the studies affect the design of user-adaptive applications.

OverviewOverview


Personalization– The use of information about a particular user to

provide tailored (personalized) user experiences for that user.

A personalized Web site– A system that adapts the content structure, and/or

presentation of the networked hypermedia objects to each individual user’s characteristics, usage behavior, and/or usage environment.

DefinitionsDefinitions


Purpose– To determine which specific personalization features

would be judged the most usable, valuable, and attractive to users of an eCommerce Web sites.

Gathered a large amount of quantitative and qualitative data.– Written and spoken opinions, written questionnaires,

think aloud protocols, free-form group and one-on-one discussions, as well as direct observations.

Overview of User Studies (1)Overview of User Studies (1)


Obtained clear attitudes of users toward adaptive techniques that were intrinsic to the implementation and design of the personalization features being tested.

Conducted three studies, carried out in multiple laboratory settings.– Each has different participants and different

methodologies (group vs. individual study).

Overview of User Studies (2)Overview of User Studies (2)


Started with 75 techniques (clustered based on similarities).

Wanted to refine the list based on measure of effectiveness, usefulness, and user attitudes derived from successive user studies.

Personalization Feature SpacePersonalization Feature Space



Two prototype systems: low-fidelity (Study 1 & 2) and interactive versions (Study 3).– Implemented in Microsoft PowerPoint and

presented on an IBM ThinkPad computer.Low-fidelity prototype consisted of screen

shots.– Lead experimenter clicked on a widget and the

response was displayed on the screen.

Prototype Adaptive Web Site (1)Prototype Adaptive Web Site (1)


Designed to demonstrate specific personalization and adaptive features.

Exemplified a Web site (a system) that maintains a profile of the user’s personal information and tailors the site’s content to that user based on the profile and navigational context.

PersonalBook– Central personalization tool that is closely tied to user

profile.

Prototype Adaptive Web Site (2)Prototype Adaptive Web Site (2)




Used to capture both quantitative and qualitative data.

Also asked subjects to rate the personalization features demonstrated in each study.– Stated as assertions.– E.g., you control all the data kept in your

profile and can review and edit it at any time.

Written Questionnaires (1)Written Questionnaires (1)


In Study 1, participants were asked to rank the features shown based on their value to the participants.

In Study 2 & 3, they were asked to rate the features using a 7-point scale (1 is “Highly Valuable”, 7 is “Not at all Valuable”).

Questionnaires also asked marketing and business case issues (whether subjects thought they would be more likely to come back and buy more).

Written Questionnaires (2)Written Questionnaires (2)


“You and your department have made various server, laptop, and desktop purchases. You now think you may have to purchase additional memory to enhance the capabilities of the laptops used by your department members. Starting from your PersonalBook, find 128MB add-on memory chipsets compatible with those laptops. Then also find memory compatible with the desktop machines your department owns…”

User Task ScenarioUser Task Scenario




Users want to be in control of their personal information.– Able to review, modify, and delete personal

information in their profile.

– Able to control over who sees and uses the information.

– Do not want their information gathered implicitly.

– Able to decide which information to be stored in their profile.

Results and Conclusion (1)Results and Conclusion (1)


Users want to be in control of the content shown on a site.– Seems to defeat the purpose of an adaptive

site.– They are happy as long as the content is

generated based on the information they provide explicitly to the system.

E.g. content-filtering and content-refinement in the PersonalBook.



Adapting content based on implicit information is undesirable.– E.g. “Compatible Memory” scenario.

Adapting content based on past navigation is also undesirable.– You can’t do it well, so don’t do it at all.

Users want to be “invisible” during exploratory sessions.– I.e. multiple user roles or persona.



Adapting content based on transient information is good as long as it is clear what is going on.

Collaborative filtering was not supported fully.– “I am not like other people. I have different

needs.”– Inappropriate products or services?



Questions/Comments?Questions/Comments?



User Attitudes Regarding a User-Adaptive User Attitudes Regarding a User-Adaptive eCommerce Web SiteeCommerce Web Site

Personalizing the User Experience on ibm.comPersonalizing the User Experience on ibm.com



Describes a strategy for bringing personalization to the ibm.com public Web site.

OverviewOverview


Personalizing interaction– The use of information about a user to alter

the content and functionality of the user experience.

Personalizing a Web site– Using personal information about an

individual to tailor the experience for that individual on the site.

Definitions (1)Definitions (1)


Personalization policy– A decision made by an eCommerce company

involving the handling of personal data on the company’s Web site.

Personalization feature– A method for collecting and using personal

information in order to tailor a Web site visitor’s experience on the Web site.

A personalization policy applies to the whole Web site, while a feature provides functionality for a particular task on the site.

Definitions (2)Definitions (2)


Involving customer and provider (producer) roles that interacts with each other.

The goal is to provide increased interaction value to both parties using their personal information.

Value of customer– F(cost of providing info, perceived benefits)

Value of company (provider)– F(cost of gathering info, perceived value)

Personalization for eCommercePersonalization for eCommerce


A range of information type and possible values to customers and businesses.– The value of techniques to any customer will vary

with the role of the customer at any time.

– The value of a technique to a business will depend on the kind of business objective they have.

– There are likely to be interactions between techniques resulting in a package of techniques that would be optimally effective.

Personalization Value SpacePersonalization Value Space


To understand the value of personalization to customers and IBM.

To develop the strategy for bringing personalization to the ibm.com public Web site which ensures that the top-priority goals of customers and the business are met.

Project GoalsProject Goals


Completing a literature review of the published research in the area of personalization.– Identify possible personalization features and

understand state of the art.Completing a set of heuristic evaluations

of the ibm.com site and key competitors to understand current best practices.– Dell, HP, Compaq, IBM, Sun, and Amazon

Project Approach (1)Project Approach (1)


Identify business requirements– Done primarily by ibm.com stakeholders.

Gathering information about personalization features that might be used.– Came up with 75 features (as described in the

previous paper) and three policies (described next).

Executing iterative user studies.

Project Approach (2)Project Approach (2)




Giving Web site visitors control of the data in their profiles.– They can review, edit, or delete information about

themselves, their purchase, etc. Asking visitors for the minimal amount of

personal information necessary and providing immediate value to the customer based on use of it (Permission Marketing).– The customer’s profile is built slowly over time as the

individual develops trust in the eCommerce company.

Three Policies (1)Three Policies (1)


Enabling Web site visitors to adopt different level of identities as appropriate to their tasks on the Web site.– Level of identity is based on degree of

personal information provided.– If no information is given, the visitor is

invisible.

Three Policies (2)Three Policies (2)






User Attitudes Regarding a User-Adaptive eCommerce Web Site

Personalizing the User Experience on ibm.com

Impacts of User Privacy Preferences on Impacts of User Privacy Preferences on Personalized Systems – a Comparative StudyPersonalized Systems – a Comparative Study


Compares 30 opinion surveys on Internet privacy, categorizes the responses, and matches them with possible impacts on personalized systems.

A first contribution towards the identification of requirements for privacy-preserving personalization, to improve users’ trust when interacting with personalized systems.

OverviewOverview


What is Personalization?What is Personalization?

Personalization is predictive analysis of consumer data used to adapt targeted media, advertising, or merchandising to consumer needs.

A personalized hypermedia application is a hypermedia system which adapts the content, structure and/or presentation of the networked hypermedia objects to each individual user’s characteristics, usage behavior and/or usage environment.


User-Adaptable vs. User-Adaptive User-Adaptable vs. User-Adaptive SystemsSystemsUser-adaptable systems

– User is in control of the initiation, proposal, selection, and production of the adaptation.

User-adaptive systems– Performs all steps autonomously.– E.g., Amazon.com.

Generates purchase recommendations based one a user’s purchase and interaction history.


Advantages of PersonalizationAdvantages of Personalization

Enables online sites to offer more relevant content and to recall user preferences and interests.

Improves the learning progress in educational software.


Privacy-Critical Personalization Privacy-Critical Personalization Processes (1)Processes (1)Personalization

– Recurring processes of data collection, profiling, and matching.

From the collected data, user profiles are created and used to personalized contents.

Then, new data are collected, and profiles are updated.


Privacy-Critical Personalization Privacy-Critical Personalization Processes (2)Processes (2)Data collection

– The most privacy-critical in the personalization process.

– Could provoke privacy fears that limit consumers’ willingness to share information.


Data Types (1)Data Types (1)

User data– Information about personal characteristics of

the user.– E.g., demographic data and user knowledge,

skills, capabilities, interests, preferences, goals, and plans.



Usage data– Related to users’ interactive behavior.– E.g., selective actions, temporal viewing

behavior, ratings, purchases and purchase-related actions, and other confirmatory and disconfirmatory actions.



Usage regularities– Based on frequently re-occurring interactions

of users.– E.g., usage frequency, situation-action

correlation, and action sequences.Environment data

– Focuses on the user’s software and hardware and the characteristics of the user’s current locale.


Privacy SurveysPrivacy Surveys

Looked at 30 surveys (or summary of survey) from 2001-2002.– Eleven included all questions (full reports).– Six provided an extensive discussion of

survey results (elaborate executive summaries).

– Ten gave factual executive summaries.– Three were only available in a form of press

releases.


Different Aspects of Privacy (1)Different Aspects of Privacy (1)

Privacy of personal information in general– User statements addressing this aspect have a

direct impact on personalized systems requiring personal information.

– E.g., statements regarding security of providing personal and sensitive information and sharing of such information.



Privacy of personal information in a commercial context.– User statements addressing this aspect

primarily affect eCommerce in general and specifically personalized systems in an eCommerce environment.

– E.g., statements regarding security and sharing of personal information given during an online transaction.



Tracking of user sessions and the use of cookies– User statements addressing this aspect

influence user-adaptive systems requiring usage data.

– E.g., statements regarding accepting, rejecting, or deleting cookies and tracking visited Web sites.



Email privacy– User statements addressing this aspect could

have an impact on user-adaptive systems dealing with emails.

– E.g., statements regarding irrelevant, unsolicited, or offensive emails.


Discussion of the Results (1)Discussion of the Results (1)

Concern over the use of personal information– A few users supplied false information to a

Web site when asked to do so.– A significant percentage of Internet users

never consider providing personal information to a Web site.

– This severely affects personalized systems that require user to submit user data.



Concern over the sharing of personal information– Almost half of the Internet users think that

sharing personal information with other sites invade privacy, unless sharing can be controlled by the users.

– This has a severe impact on central user modeling servers that collect and share data with different user-adaptive applications.



Concern over the tracking and cookies– More than 50% of Internet users concern

about Internet tracking.– A significant number claimed they would set

their browser to reject cookies.– More than half of the users stated they would

delete cookies periodically.– This affects machine-learning methods

dealing with log data.



Concern over email privacy– 62% complains about irrelevant emails.– Almost every Internet user has received

unsolicited emails.– This especially affects personalization systems

that deal with personalized emails.



Most users willing to give personal information in exchange for personalized user experience, but not sensitive information.

Users demonstrate less commitment in providing information to a Web site that shares the information to other sites.


Discussion of the Methodology (1)Discussion of the Methodology (1)

Lack of comparability of studies– Small differences in wording of questions,

context of questionnaires, sample size, recruiting method and demographic characteristic will influence the result.

Using imprecise terminology– The term “privacy“ is often used as a

synonym of security against identity fraud or spam.


Discussion of the Methodology (1)Discussion of the Methodology (1)

Users’ stated privacy preferences and the actual behavior may diverge.– 76% of users states that privacy policies are

important, but barely view such pages when they visit Web pages.

User’s willingness to share information depends on other factors, such as usability of the sites, level of trust, and to whom the sites belong to.


Future DirectionsFuture Directions

Giving a guarantee that users’ personal data will only be used for the intended purposes.– Such guarantee is forced by privacy laws.

Allowing anonymous interaction.– Users will be more open.– Relieves the provider from the restriction of

privacy laws.



Documents

Personalization User Attitudes Regarding a User-Adaptive eCommerce Web Site Personalizing the User Experience on ibm.com Impacts of User Privacy Preferences