Web site personalisation: Some HCI issues

Dr Nicolas Szilas
Chief Scientist at the Innovation Department Of Unilog

Tuesday 08 January at 11am

Abstract

Despite a large amount of press coverage about web site personalisation, few web sites really propose a personalised web user experience. We argue that the existing approaches to web site personalisation are limited because they put too much focus on building marketing platforms for targeting customers instead of putting the user experience at the center of the process.

After presenting an overview of web site personalisation, we discuss some issues concerning the user experience: privacy, confidence, control, etc.

This leads us to suggest that part of the future of personalisation lies in building advanced user models. Those models would not only contain a "profile of interest", but also some features related to the relationship between the user and the web site.

Short resume

Nicolas SZILAS studied at the Higher Engineer School of Marseilles (ESIM) in 1989, where he studied various fields in engineering. He then obtained a Cognitive Science DEA and PhD between 1991 and 1995, in Grenoble, France.

Since 1996, he has participated in several research programs, both in academics and industry, combining Artificial Intelligence and Human Computer Interaction.

Between 1999 and 2001, he has been Chief Scientist at the Innovation Department Of Unilog, a European software integration company. He developed new ideas and businesses in the field of search engines, web personalisation, linguistics based applications and ergonomics.

He is now doing research in the field of narrative and computer, in order to create new forms of interactive drama.

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