Satyajit Das

Web Personalization is viewed as the process of customizing a Web site to the needs of specific user and adapting future interactions with the ultimate goal of improved user satisfaction. This paper survey’s the different approaches of web personalization used in web applications in three domains: a) e-commerce, b) News and c) Social Network Service (SNS).

Role: Usability analyst

Done at: University of California Irvine

Duration: two weeks

Tasks: Heuristic Evaluation, Competitor Analysis/Benchmarking, Technology Benchmarking, Feature Benchmarking.

The paper gives a  detailed overview of the adaptation methods of intelligent techniques for personalization by modern web applications. It starts by providing a description of the personalization process, detailed observation of the personalization features of the three leading web sites in each domain, and summarizing the current approaches of web personalization. We proceed by discussing the customization and personalization techniques currently practiced in the aforementioned domains. The paper concludes with the comparison of the features of the websites selected for the study and generalizing the importance of personalization.

Objective
– Study personalization and adaptation techniques
– Observe how modern websites use these techniques
– Different approaches of personalization
– Levels of customization (automatically or manually configured system)
– Focus on three domain: e-commerce, news, and SNS

• Data acquisition

• Representation and secondary inferences

• Adaptation

1. Adaptation in content
2. Adaptation in presentation and modality
3. Adaptation in structure

• Different approaches of personalization

– Individual Vs Collaborative
– Users Information Vs Item Information
– Reactive (Explicit) Vs Proactive (Implicit)

• Functions of personalization

– Personalized home page
– Personalized recommendations