Making Personalization Feel More Personal: a Four-Step Cycle for Advancing the User Experience of Personalized Recommenders and Adaptive Systems
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604 Chapter 31 Making Personalization Feel More Personal: A Four-Step Cycle for Advancing the User Experience of Personalized Recommenders and Adaptive Systems Shailendra Rao Stanford University, USA Jeremy N. Bailenson Stanford University, USA Clifford Nass Stanford University, USA AbstrAct The gold standard for customer service is catering to each individual’s unique needs. This means pro- viding them undivided attention and helping them find what they want as well as what they will like, based on their prior history. An illustrative metaphor of the ideal interpersonal relationship between retailers and consumers is the “sincere handshake,” welcoming a familiar face to a familiar place and saying goodbye until next time, best symbolizes an ideal interpersonal relationship between retailers and consumers. In this chapter the authors offer a four-step cycle of this personalization process, which abstracts the key elements of this handshake in order to make it possible in mass digital consumerism. This model offers an ideal framework for drawing out the key lessons learned from the two previous stages of media evolution, Micro and Mass, as well as from social science and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) to inform the design and further the understanding of the rich capabilities of the current age of Digital Consumerism. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-792-8.ch031 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Making Personalization Feel More Personal PErsonALIzAtIon cycLE: age and frame the recommended content when AbstrActInG tHE KEy ELEMEnts presenting it to the consumer and follow through For tHE HAndsHAKE accordingly. This personalization process can be conceptualized as a cyclical one as the recom- The key aspects of the interaction between the mender agent can iterate and continue to refine customer and retailer that make it feel personal- their understanding and modeling of a user, expand ized can be abstracted and broken down into a their library of matching content, and improve on four-step cycle: 1) Gather user information and how they frame the personalized content when needs, 2) Build user model and profile, 3) Match presenting it to each individual consumer. With user with appropriate available content, and 4) the cyclical nature and striving for constant im- Present personalized content (see Figure 1). provement the retailer can adhere to the age old The first step in the interaction between media, adage that the customer is always right. content, product, or service providers and con- Together this four step-cycle abstracts the key sumers with personalized service is assessing the steps necessary for personalization away from consumer’s demographics and unique preferences. the intricate human production and computing Just as in retail, a key part of this initial assessment processes necessary for execution. By doing so is trying to assess their goals- whether they are this model provides a framework for identifying in search of something specific or browsing a la exactly where the insights and future investiga- window-shopping. Once this has been done either tions from social science and HCI can help make through explicit or implicit input, the provider can personalization feel more personal for consumers. formulate an internal model of whom the person is and what they might like. Then utilizing this Micro consumerism: A model the provider can determine what available Friendly Handshake products or services will best suit this particular consumer. Finally, based on the previous three A frequently visited local video rental store pro- steps, the provider can assess how to best pack- vided an ideal setting for this handshake to take Figure 1. The personalization process 605 Making Personalization Feel More Personal place. At this neighborhood store customers would & Gomery, 2000), and the proliferation of big be welcomed by a friendly greeting from a store businesses to the detriment of local mom-and-pop clerk or owner, who would ask them how their shops such as the neighborhood video rental store, previous movie recommendations turned out as which fostered and were dependent on sincere well as suggest new ones based on the customer’s interpersonal relationships with their clientele. In feedback and prior likings. For the customer the the name of profit and efficiency truly personalized purchase process was made infinitely easier and service and media existed only at the margins of enjoyable because of this personalized service. society with special interest venues. From the seller’s perspective the handshake To accrue the benefits of the handshake from was a key ingredient in building a better shop- Micro Consumerism at each of the four outlined ping experience and thus a stronger business, by levels of the personalization process which were helping project a caring image, increasing sales so critical to the previous model of customer-seller with targeted recommendations, and cultivating relationship, media conglomerates drew on several a regular loyal consumer base. strategies to blur the lines between interpersonal Personalization was a critical factor in making (Gemeinschaft) and mass media (Gesellschaft) the customer-seller relationship feel truly per- (Beniger, 1987). These strategies centered around sonalized at this stage of consumerism precisely feigning the sincerity of the handshake com- because of what it did at each aspect of the four- monly found at the previously ubiquitous local step personalization process. The manner by which video rental store. Strategies for mass media the store clerk or owner gathered their customer’s productions to conceal audience size with the needs was important as the right questions were aim of generating pseudo-communities include asked in the right manner for each individual. simplicity, personal stories, personal agents, in- Because the retailer had developed a relation- teractivity, emphasis on emotion, and production ship with the customer and knew how to parse values. Media providers and retailers used these the information they gathered from them, they strategies with varying success however and the were able to properly build a profile and model handshake frequently found at the neighborhood of what each individual would like, which led store was never fully attained in all arenas with to a natural matching with appropriate available the same level of sincerity. content (Linden, Smith, & York, 2003). Finally, It increasingly became the norm to visit a the store clerk or owner was able to present this chain brick and mortar retailer such as Block- personalized content in a targeted and transpar- buster (J Nielsen & Mack, 1994) or Hollywood ent manner, which spoke to each individual at a Video (Izard, 1971) as opposed to going to the personal level and made the recommendations quickly disappearing neighborhood video rental and overall service feel more personal. store. Oftentimes gone with this transition were the familiar faces that were able to attend to each Mass consumerism: the Efficient, individual’s needs because they knew them at a but Impersonal Handshake personal level. Instead of being greeted by a store clerk who knew their previous viewing history and Unfortunately many aspects of this handshake could make personalized recommendations based were lost in recent times with the emergence of on their prior likings, consumers found themselves mass media (media designed for a very large audi- unattended and unassisted in a do-it-yourself ence) (DeFleur & Dennis, 1991; McQuail, 2005), shopping experience. The burden was primarily media consolidation (the majority of major media on consumers to satisfy their own needs during outlets owned by a few corporations) (Compaine this stage of media evolution. Critical elements 606 Making Personalization Feel More Personal represented in this handshake that made con- age. This has allowed for the possibility of that sumerism feel personalized in the previous stage gold standard of customer service to be recon- were missing. Consequently the gold standard for structed without losing the efficiency and other customer service normally found in the previous tangible benefits of Mass Consumerism. Instead stage of consumerism was lost. of succumbing to the limitations and impersonal Lost in this transition from Micro Consumer- nature of a one-to-many broadcast model, content ism to Mass Consumerism were the wins at each providers and advertisers can tailor their messages, of the four levels of the personalization process, services, and products to meet the specific needs which were major factors in attaining that friendly of a particular individual with a very personalized handshake between retailers and consumers. feel. The symbolic handshake can be resurrected Because there was less emphasis on individual- with the technological affordances of the present ized service and fewer opportunities, it was a stage in media evolution. seemingly impossible challenge to both gather a Innovations in and high adoption rates of customer’s individual needs and build an accurate cable and digital television, the emergence of the profile and model of them fully considering their Internet, and the prevalence of mobile phones uniqueness, rather than making gross guesses have created a setting where content providers and about them based on their assumed demographic. advertisers can more effectively feign a personal The consumer also suffered from poorly