about
Adaptive Web Explained
An Internet user usually looks for information either
by Web browsing, that is by navigating from page to page along Web links, or by
searching with a search engine. The impersonal organization of information on the
Web has some negative consequences for users, such as slow network or connection
speeds; not being able to find specific pages, even after they have been found before;
not being able to manage or organize retrieved information; and not being able to
visualize where they have been. An adequate solution to this problem would be the
implementation of Web personalization and adaptation concepts and techniques.
Drastic changes underpinned the science in previous
years with the basic goal of personalization systems to remain the same, to provide
users with what they want or need without requiring them to ask for it explicitly.
Personalization is the provision to the individual of tailored products, multimedia-based
services, Web-based multimedia content, information or information relating to products
or services. Personalization could be realized in one of two ways: (a) Web sites
that require users to register and provide information about their interests, and
(b) Web sites that only require the registration of users so that they can be identified.
Web Personalization could be considered a complex issue
with many aspects that need to be analyzed. Some of these issues become even more
complicated once viewed from a mobile user's perspective, when wireless communication
media and mobile device constraints are involved and the demand for personalized
information "anytime, anywhere and anyhow" is presupposed. Such issues include,
but are not limited to: (a) what content to present to the user, (b) how to show
the content to the user, (c) how to ensure the user's privacy, (d) how to create
a global personalization scheme.
Encapsulating today's digital reality, it is an indisputable
fact that the user population is not homogeneous. To be able to deliver quality
knowledge, systems should be tailored to the needs of individual users providing
them personalized and adapted information. User segmentation is a very valuable
step towards that direction. User segmentation means that the user population is
subdivided, into more or less homogeneous, mutually exclusive subsets of users who
share common user profile characteristics. The subdivisions could be based on: Demographic
characteristics (i.e. age, gender, urban or rural based, region), Socio-economic
characteristics (i.e. income, class, sector, number of employees, volume
of business, channel access), Psychographic characteristics (i.e. life style,
values, sensitivity to new trends), Individual physical and psychological characteristics
(i.e. disabilities, attitude, loyalty). User characteristics and needs, determining
user segmentation and thus provision of the adjustable information delivery, differ
according to the circumstances and they may change over time.
Be unique... be personalized is the leading theme of
the AdaptiveWeb team shaping the main focus of this project, upon the consideration
and analysis of parameters and contexts such as users intellectuality, mental capabilities,
socio-psychological factors, emotional states and attention grabbing strategies,
that could affect the apt collection of users' customization requirements offering
in return the best adaptive environments to their preferences and demands. More
specifically a new dimension, on top of the "traditional" user profile characteristics,
is extensively investigated. Visual Attention processing and Cognitive Psychology
processing parameters (including cognitive and emotional ones), are incorporated
into our experiments in an attempt to determine the correlation between them and
/ or subjects and eventually identify the user perceptual preference characteristics
leading to the sustainable user segmentation / categorization. Once the latter is
achieved, we will be in a position to provide an adapted and personalized content
to the various user groups based on their true and concrete preferences.