Information Overload

Information
Overload

• Information presented
at a rate too fast for a
person to process

• The state of having too

much information to make
a decision or remain
5 informed about a topic
Online Information Overload
• Every time we go online, we are overwhelmed by the
available options

• Web Search….which search result is most relevant to my needs?

• Entertainment….which movie should I download? which restaurant
should I eat at?
• E-commerce….which product is best for me? what’s on special
now? which holiday will I enjoy most?
• News….which news stories are most interesting to me? what
happened in US last night?
• Health….which food is healthy for me? which types of exercise
should I try? what doctor can I trust?
What news should I read?
News?

88 | Web Personalization & Recommender Systems | Jill Freyne

12 | Web Personalization & Recommender Systems | Jill Freyne
What should I eat?

13 | Web Personalization & Recommender Systems | Jill Freyne

Personalisation
Personalisation is…
• “… the ability to provide content and services tailored to
individuals based on knowledge about their preferences
and behavior” (tools and information)

• “… the capability to customize customer communication

based on preferences and behaviors at the time of
interaction [with the customer]” (communication)

• “… about building customer loyalty and meaningful one-to-

one relationship; by understanding the needs of each
individual and helping satisfy a goal that efficiently and
knowledgeably addresses the individual’s need in a given
context” (customer relationships)
Amazon and Personalisation
• Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO
• Credited with changing the way the
world shops
• Among the first to deploy large-scale
personalisation online
• “If I have 3 million customers on
the Web, I should have 3 million
stores on the Web”
For Example…

• Amazon maintains shopper profiles

• Based on products and past interactions
– Purchased products, feedback, wish list, items browsed, …
• Amazon provides personalised recommendations for
items to purchase
• Instead of showing random or popular or discounted items
How is Personalisation Achieved?
1. Gathering information about the users
Explicitly – through direct user input
Implicitly – through monitoring user interactions

2. Exploiting this information to create the user model

Dynamic vs. Static
Short term vs. Long term

3. Use the model to adapt

some aspects of the
system to reflect user
needs, interests, or
preferences
Framework for Personalisation
Mixed-Initiative Systems Mass Customization
Adaptive Hypermedia Recommender Systems

Interface Interaction Functions Content

1 Buy
2 View
3 Search
Store
4
Compare
5
Select
6 …

User Models
User Modelling and Personalisation
• People leave traces on the internet...
• What pages do they visit? How long do they visit for?
• What search queries are they using?
• What products do they buy?
• What movies do they download?
• Who are their online friends?

• User modelling is about making sense of this data

• to gain an understanding of the characteristics, preferences, and
needs of an individual user

• Personalisation exploits user models

• to filter information and provide personalised services
– that match the user's needs
User Model Based Personalisation
• 3 stages
• User information collection
• User profile construction
• Exploitation of profile for personalisation

• Essentially, the loop can be closed

User Model Based Personalisation
• Two stages
• User model construction
• Service personalisation
• But they are linked and inform each other
user models

user modelling personalisation

component component

feedback
User Modelling
• Different systems require different models
• Sometimes you model the user in terms of preferences and interests
– Marketing a product to a user, returning search results,
recommending tourist activities
• Sometimes you model user’s knowledge and goals
– Adaptive educational systems, online tutorials, video lectures
• Sometimes model fitness, health or medical conditions
• No single generic user model structure
What can be modeled?
• User as an individual
• Knowledge
• Interests
• Preferences
• Goals and motivation
• Personality and traits
• Interactions with system
• Constraints/limitations
• …
• External/situational factors
• Social environment
• Network conditions
• End user device
• …
Explicit User Data Collection
• Relies on information provided by the user
• Amazon asks for ratings on items purchased
• TripAdvisor asks for hotel reviews and ratings
• Often contains demographic information
• Birthday, location, interests, marital status, job …
• Typically accurate, but
require time and effort
Explicit User Data Collection
• Often a one-off activity at sign-up
Implicit User Data Collection
• Derives user modelling data from observable user behavior
• Monitor users interactions
– with the system
– with other users
• Learn/mine the required user data
• Examples
• Browser cache, proxy servers, search logs, purchased items,
examined products, bookmarked pages, links sent to friends,
preferred brands, …
• Typically less accurate than explicit data but
• more abundant and readily available
• does not require extra-effort from users
Hybrid Data Collection
• Combines explicit and implicit methods
• to leverage the benefits of both methods
• Typically achieves the highest accuracy
• Many things are learned implicitly
• User feedback is sought for uncertain/important data
• Used by many commercial systems
Emotion Based Modelling
• Relatively new direction in user modelling
• Experienced emotions reflect liked/disliked items
• Explicit (sentiment analysis) and implicit (sensors)
• Potentially very fine granularity
Contextualised User Models
• What can be considered as context?
• Location of the user, presence of other users, time of day, day of week,
weather, temperature, mood, …
• Does context matter?
• Cooking: alone vs. with kids
• Music: happy vs. sad
• Movie: home vs. theater
• Vacation: summer vs. winter
• User preferences are not steady but rather context-dependent
• Only feedback-in-context is meaningful
• Non-contextualized feedback assumes a default context
– Default context = most likely context
– Sometimes true, but often false
Part 2:
Web Personalisation and
Recommender Systems
Personalised Search
• Search engines can tailor
the results to the user
Contextual Search
• Personalisation determined by past searches
• Users are authenticated by accounts or cookies
• No dedicated user modeling component
• If users enter short queries the profile could indicate the
desired meaning
• If a user has been entering queries
about flights, accommodation, or
vaccines, they are probably looking
for a travel visa
Location Based Search
• Results are tailored to user’s
geographical location
• Even though this is not part
of the query
• Done automatically through
redirection across engines
• Often switches the language
• Important for mobile search
• Results automatically invoke
Maps
Personalised Navigation Support
• Showing users the way when they browse
• Helping users lost in the Web
• Direct guidance
• Sorting lists and links
• Adding/changing/removing links
• Adding textual annotations
• Hiding or highlighting text
• Increasing font size
• Adapting images and maps
• Many more…
Annotations and Signposts
• Annotations
• Number showing how many times a link have been followed
• Signposts: user feedback regarding past interaction history
• Users may comment on pages or on paths in the social
navigation display
Social Web Personalixation
• Unprecedented volume of information
• Huge contributor to the information overload
• But non-negligible consumption medium as well
• Personalization use cases
• News feed filtering and reordering
• Preselection of tweets/posts
• Recommendations of friends/followees
• Recommendations of events/communities
• Content ranking on behalf of users
• Content tagging and bookmarking
• Job/company suggestions
• Many more…