Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 51).In order to improve the effectiveness of communications in marketing, companies must now find ways to target their marketing campaigns to the right people, and present content in a way that the end user is most comfortable with. Contrary to classical market segmentation, the user adaptive Web engine in this paper segments users based on cognitive and cultural dimensions. To build a Web site that changes based on what the user has clicked on, the system must be capable of figuring out what version to serve, and be able to morph between different versions of the Web site. The engine to achieve this goal has two main components: the presentation engine, and the math engine. I am responsible for building the presentation engine, and to ensure that it interfaces well with the math engine. First, I designed the entire system to make sure that it follows the main principle of software engineering-modularity. Then, I implemented the presentation engine. As part of the research group, I helped create working prototypes for two industry partners. Lastly, 501 participants in a study conducted in Japan evaluated the prototype Web site. Results showed significant positive effects of morphing in terms of user experience, and probability of purchase. This research has made contributions to how morphing Web sites should be built. The highlight of the system design is the novel rules component that allows non-technical users to update the behavior of the Web site.by Shirley S. Fung.M.Eng
