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There is an ever-increasing volume of content available today, be it on internet, extranet, or intranet websites.
Personalization centers on providing the user with a tailor-made environment displaying dynamic content that is selected according to their specific needs; be this on the basis of predefined profiles, user selection, or interactive user behavior.
There are three main elements involved in personalization:
- Users
have profiles, both individual and group. These profiles contain characteristics (such as job description, location, interests) which can be used to personalize the content they can see.
take actions. These can then be analyzed and matched against behavior rules to tailor the content they see.
- Content
is what the user wants to see. Preferably content of interest and use to them for fulfilling their tasks.
can be categorized, and therefore made available to users according to predefined rules.
must be dynamic; in other words the content must, in some way, be dependent upon the user – if every user would see the same content, then personalization would be redundant.
- Rules
define how personalization actually happens – which content the user can see, and when.
Personalization can be either:
- Explicit
Customization: whereby the user makes selections from a choice of content sources.
- Implicit
Rules based: business managers define specific rules for actions based upon specific profiles and/or behavior.
Simple filtering: selections are made on the basis of predefined profiles at user and/or group level.
Collaborative / recommendation filtering: user behavior is registered according to predefined rules. These rules are based on behavior observed with “like-minded” individuals. The information collected is used to tailor the information displayed to the user, particularly in the form of recommendations.