Explaining the user experience of recommender systems

  • Authors:
  • Bart P. Knijnenburg;Martijn C. Willemsen;Zeno Gantner;Hakan Soncu;Chris Newell

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Informatics, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine, USA 92697 and Human-Technology Interaction Group, School of Innovation Science ...;Human-Technology Interaction Group, School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), Eindhoven, The Netherlands 5600 MB;Information Systems and Machine Learning Lab (ISMLL), University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany 31141;European Microsoft Innovation Center GmbH, Aachen, Germany 52072;BBC Research & Development, Centre House, London, UK W12 7SB

  • Venue:
  • User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

Research on recommender systems typically focuses on the accuracy of prediction algorithms. Because accuracy only partially constitutes the user experience of a recommender system, this paper proposes a framework that takes a user-centric approach to recommender system evaluation. The framework links objective system aspects to objective user behavior through a series of perceptual and evaluative constructs (called subjective system aspects and experience, respectively). Furthermore, it incorporates the influence of personal and situational characteristics on the user experience. This paper reviews how current literature maps to the framework and identifies several gaps in existing work. Consequently, the framework is validated with four field trials and two controlled experiments and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. The results of these studies show that subjective system aspects and experience variables are invaluable in explaining why and how the user experience of recommender systems comes about. In all studies we observe that perceptions of recommendation quality and/or variety are important mediators in predicting the effects of objective system aspects on the three components of user experience: process (e.g. perceived effort, difficulty), system (e.g. perceived system effectiveness) and outcome (e.g. choice satisfaction). Furthermore, we find that these subjective aspects have strong and sometimes interesting behavioral correlates (e.g. reduced browsing indicates higher system effectiveness). They also show several tradeoffs between system aspects and personal and situational characteristics (e.g. the amount of preference feedback users provide is a tradeoff between perceived system usefulness and privacy concerns). These results, as well as the validated framework itself, provide a platform for future research on the user-centric evaluation of recommender systems.