User-oriented product search based on consumer values and lifestyles

  • Authors:

  • Hesam Ziaei;Wayne Wobcke;Anna Wong

  • Affiliations:

  • School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia;School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia;School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

  • Venue:
  • PKAW'12 Proceedings of the 12th Pacific Rim conference on Knowledge Management and Acquisition for Intelligent Systems
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

Product search engines are essentially unchanged since the inception of online shopping, providing basic browsing by category and "advanced" keyword search. This paper presents a user-oriented product search method based on consumer values and lifestyles that correspond to user purchasing criteria rather than technical specifications. The technique is suited to relatively infrequent purchases where users possess little domain or market knowledge and existing interfaces are difficult to use. We show how to construct a knowledge base to support a user-oriented product search engine without the need for a domain expert to manually label the items. We present Lifestyle Car Finder, a user-oriented product search system in the domain of new cars. The system incorporates various modes of navigation (search refinement, a new form of critiquing adaptive to the user's query, and breadcrumb trails) and decision support (similar car comparison, explanations and technical specifications). We report on a user study showing that, broadly speaking, users were highly satisfied with the system and felt they were confident in their decisions.