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User Modeling

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Book cover Human-Centred Web Adaptation and Personalization

Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

Abstract

Adaptation and personalization systems build and maintain a user (and data) model throughout the whole human-computer interaction process. A user model is an essential component of any interactive system and entails all the information which is considered important in order to adapt and personalize the user interface (content and navigation) and functionalities to the unique characteristics of a user. Depending on the domain and goals of the system, user models can include different kinds of characteristics about the users (e.g., interests, preferences, traits, etc.) or data with respect to their overall context of use (e.g., environment, time, interaction device type, etc.). Furthermore, this information can be provided explicitly to the system (e.g., with the use of online questionnaires or psychometric tests) by the user or implicitly extracted with the use of computational intelligence algorithms and methods, based on the users’ interactions and activities. In this chapter we present the underlying principles of user modeling, including the main factors being modeled in today’s adaptation and personalization systems, user data collection methods and user model generation techniques. We also briefly refer to a comprehensive user model composed of intrinsic individual characteristics under a unified representation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Suite Engineering UX, Products & Innovation, SAP SE, Walldorf, Germany

    Panagiotis Germanakos

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Panagiotis Germanakos & Marios Belk

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  1. Panagiotis Germanakos
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  2. Marios Belk
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Germanakos, P., Belk, M. (2016). User Modeling. In: Human-Centred Web Adaptation and Personalization. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28050-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28050-9_3

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