Aroyo, L. (Lora)

Hardman, L. (Lynda)

Loeber, S.G.

English

CWI's Institutional Repository

An explicit model for tailor-made eCommerceweb presentationsS. G. Loeber1, L. M. Aroyo1, L. Hardman21 TU/e, Computer Science, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands,telephone:+31.40.247.5154, fax: +31.40.246.39922 CWI, P.O. Box 94079, 1090 GB Amsterdam, The Netherlands,telephone:+31.20.592.4147, fax:+31.20.592.4312Abstract. This paper focuses on how the setting-related factors influ-ence the content selection, the layout creation and the presentation gen-eration for (eCommerce) web-based presentations. It pays special atten-tion to those factors which help the user play rhetorical roles. We haveintegrated our theory in the Standard Reference Model for IntelligentMultimedia Presentation Systems (SRM-IMMPSs). By doing so, boththe user and the designer will benefit. The user will be able to interactand communicate in a more natural way and the designer will be ableto predict, limit the number of presentations plus perform more preciseusability evaluations.1 IntroductionIn the current competitive business environment, providing meaning and satis-faction to customers is of great importance in order to remain in business. Aweb site can be of help in many ways: it can be used to attract the customer’sattention to (new) information, products and services; it can be used to persuadecustomers to purchase a certain product directly or to live according to a certainlifestyle; and it can be used to offer reassurance and service to keep the customersatisfied and loyal [5].In order to automatically generate web-based presentations which help usersto fulfill their needs and to become loyal customers, a complex model is needed.This model should not only contain the information about the user, but alsoabout the setting in which the presentation will be presented. Our model, de-rived from the Standard Reference Model for Intelligent Multimedia PresentationSystems (SRM-IMMPSs) [1], introduces an Optimization Layer which guides thecreation of presentations in such a way that it helps users understand how toreact to or to interact with the information provided. In other words, this typeof presentations help users recognize the rhetorical role [3] they are asked toplay and helps them to understand the purpose and the content of the presen-tation. When a user plays a rhetorical role, for example a ”teacher” looking forstudy books on Amazon.com, she presents a version of herself that she deemappropriate for the time (3 months before her course starts), place (web sitethat sells books) and situation (finding cheap books that students will like) [8].The combination of the user, time, place and situation is called a setting.To sum up: information about the setting and rhetoric (which role to playin order to fulfill a need through interaction with the web-based presentation)within our model is necessary because every course of action from the users isnot only driven by their needs and goals, but is also dependent on its virtualand social circumstances (which content, layout, interaction level is providedplus which device, platform, network speed is being used).In this paper we focus on the setting-related factors that influence the contentselection, the layout creation and the presentation generation for a web site. Weaim at a model that facilitates the process of rhetorical role-playing presentationgeneration. In section two, we introduce the characteristics of an eCommerceoriented setting and the rhetorical roles users play within the different typesof web-based presentations. In section three, we describe the SRM-IMMPSs. Insection four, we propose an Optimization Layer and corresponding adjustmentswithin the IMMPSs architecture. Finally, we present discussion and conclusionsof the proposed approach.2 The characteristics of an eCommerce oriented settingIn order to describe an eCommerce oriented setting, we focus on two main char-acteristics: the web site and the visitors. In the following two subsection we willbriefly describe the influence of the web site and the visitors in the process ofautomatically generating an adaptive tailor-made web presentations.2.1 The web siteThe main purpose of a web site is to inform, to persuade or to entertain its targetaudience. The purpose of an eCommerce oriented web site is to persuade itstarget audience in such a way that they will buy, use or adjust to the information,products, service/lifestyle offered.Each web site type is either based on utilitarian values or hedonic values.Web sites with utilitarian values are designed to help the visitor perform certaintasks easily and quickly. Their design is all about functionality. They are realizedas a feature-based implementation such as search engines, structured lists andoverviews/site maps. Web sites with hedonic values are designed to entertain thevisitor. Their design is all about pleasure, excitement and they offer a uniquelywebby experience with characteristics such as association, image, experience andpleasure.We consider eCommerce oriented web sites to be mainly of an electronic shop(eshop) type, where the purpose of the web site is to persuade people to orderand/or buy information, products, lifestyles, dreams, etc. They can have eitherutilitarian values, where the visitor uses, for example, a search engine to find theproducts and click on a button to order that product or hedonic values, wherethe visitor for example plays a game or reads a story to get a reduction or a freesample.2.2 The people who visit the web siteWhen people communicate with each other they communicate through a seriesof [rhetorical] roles that they assume appropriate to their rhetorical purposes[2]. Their rhetorical purpose is to find information written in such a way that ithelps them to fulfill their needs. Therefore they will prefer information writtenin a informative, persuasive or entertaining way. We presume that users alsoplay different roles when they react to or interact with a web site. In orderto incorporate rhetorical role playing into the electronic medium, we introducePersona Theory [3]. Persona Theory provides guidelines how to create rolesthat define the content, the tone and the ways to communicate with the website and its audience. This is achieved by introducing Personas. Personas arebehavioristic style templates. Each Persona shows how to achieve its goal andperform its tasks within a certain setting, in this case, a web site with a certainpurpose and a certain way of interacting with the visitor.There are two types of Personas. On the one hand the Author Persona, whois the voice (of the designer/company) that speaks through the web site. Onthe other hand, the User Persona, who is a voice that explains the role theactual user is asked to play when entering the web site. User Personas can begrouped into do-ers, readers and viewers [10], based on their given needs andgoals. (We use the term do-ers, rather than Zeldman’s users in order to avoidconfusion with the general interpretation of the word user). Do-ers are peoplewho use tools to accomplish a task. They want to find a product (so they canbuy it) or find/compare/verify information. They want to carry out their taskas fast as possible and with as little effort as possible. Viewers are people whoseek entertainment. They want to be surprised, seduced or guided because thejourney is often more important than the end result. They will take their timeand enjoy the web site’s ’flashy’ appearance. Readers are people who turn toa web site as they might turn to a book or an article. They want to read inorder to find in-depth information or to find relaxation/excitement. Do-ers aremore attracted to eshops with utilitarian values. Viewers like to be entertainedor want to experience a certain life style on eshop with hedonic values. Readerswill prefer an eshop which looks like a story, where for example the visitor canbuy products following the example of a celebrity or one of the characters withinthis story.Following this reasoning, we can conclude that there should be a link betweenthe purpose of the web site and the type of audience when developing Personasin order to help users to fulfill their needs and become loyal customers. In thefollowing sections, we first shortly describe SRM-IMMPSs, then we present theOptimization Layer which makes it possible to generate setting and rhetoricalrole-playing dependent presentations.3 The SRM for IMMPSsA common approach for presentation generation is realized with the help ofretrieval, creation and generation systems. An example of this is the StandardReference Model for Intelligent Multimedia Presentation System (SRM-IMMPS)[1], which deals with the dynamic creation and generation of multimedia pre-sentations. It is a broadly applicable model that describes the generating ofpresentations including web-based presentations. Therefore our model is basedon SRM-IMMPS. In the next section web will introduce an Optimization Layer,which lies between the Generation Process and the Knowledge Server (see fig1). First we will show the IMMPS architecture and shortly describe the differentexpert modules within the Knowledge Server.Fig. 1. The Standard Reference Architecture for IMMPSsFigure 1 shows the IMMPS reference architecture. Its conceptual design re-flects a modularization of the generation process into five layers: Control Layer,Content Layer, Design Layer, Realization Layer and Presentation Display Layer.To gain knowledge, the layers can exploit explicitly encoded knowledge providedby a separate Knowledge Server. The Knowledge Server is composed of fourknowledge sources: Application Expert, Context Expert, User Expert and DesignExpert. The experts are represented as shared resources rather than as local orprivate resources.The User Expert maintains the knowledge of the IMMPS’s user model. Itmay include representations of the goals and plans; physical or mental abilities;attitudes and preferences; knowledge and beliefs of the user or group of users.The Application Expert provides the IMMPS with application specific knowl-edge. The data can be retrieved from different sources, such as web sites, databasesetc. Within this component the data for the presentation of the web site is stored.It is also assumed to carry out tasks, such as interfacing with the applicationsystem(s), data format conversion, provision of data and data characterization.The Context Expert serves as a container for knowledge concerning the con-text. The context refers to the device used, the platform, the network speed andall factors that can influence the final presentation without being part of the usercharacteristics. Its task is to construct a generation context (a representation ofwhat has been generated so far and what adaptivity rules have been used) anda presentation context (a representation of what has been presented to the userso far and how she interacts with this presentation).The Design Expert contains the design rules on how to build a presentation.It complements the other experts in the sense that it provides a container for allother knowledge which is relevant for decision making in an IMMPS. The designconstraints and rules are organized per device model and media/modality model.4 Introducing an Optimization Layer for eCommerceIn order to be able to automatically generate adaptive, tailor-made presenta-tions, a setting-driven and rhetorical role-playing approach is needed. Thereforean User Model Expert with Target Audience and Visitor Profile knowledge, aContext Model Expert with Context and Usage Profile knowledge, a DiscourseExpert, a Design Expert and an Application Expert within the Knowledge Serverare necessary to provide all the information about the setting. In order to comeup with the best presentation for a specific user within a certain setting, thedata from the experts needs to be retrieved by an Optimization Layer. Thislayer filters the data in such a way that the Motivation, Ability and Opportunityfactors have the highest possible values. Afterwards, it sends the processed datato the Generation Process so that a rhetorical role-playing and setting orientedpresentation can be generated (see fig. 2).4.1 Updates on the Knowledge ServerThe User Expert is changed into User Model Expert and contains a Target Au-dience Expert and a Visitor Profile. The Target Audience Expert represent thetarget audience’s motivation, ability and opportunity [6], [4]. The Visitor Profilecontains knowledge about a particular visitor and additional information to theTarget Audience Expert, for example user preferences. Our User Model Expertcontains not only information about the presumed user model, but also infor-mation directly retrieved from the actual visitor. By generating presentationsspecifically meant for a certain audience, we hope to get a more precise UserModel Expert. The SRM-IMMPS has either one of these information sourcesand targets as much visitors as possible.The Context Expert is changed into Context Model Expert and contains aContext Expert for general information and an Usage Profile for specific infor-mation about the way and product the user uses to view the presentation. TheFig. 2. An Optimization Layer within the SRM for IMMPSsadded value of the Context Model Expert compared to SRM-IMMPS’s ContextExpert is that it gives a more precise model on initially processed, integratedinformation.A Discourse Expert [9] is added. This Expert guides the generation of thepresentation structure using discourse models such as Rhetoric Structure Theory[7], a pedagogical model or a marketing oriented model. It is based on the purposeof the web site and gives a recognizable ’flavor’ to the presentation, which showshow users should play their roles. This ’flavor’ can be the color of the brand ora certain way of writing that distinguishes one web site from another within thesame application area.The Application Expert and the Design Expert remain the same. They areboth used in the process of retrieving and creating the content for the presenta-tion.4.2 The Optimization LayerIn figure 2 we present the Optimization Layer which consists of three modules:Motivation, Ability and Opportunity. These modules are necessary for processingthe data from the Knowledge Server in such a way that a presentation can begenerated based on a rhetorical role-playing and setting-driven approach.The Motivation module is responsible for the filtering of information aboutthe target audience characteristics, such as the need, goal, cultural values incombination with the purpose of the web site. It guides the generation of a pre-sentation relevant to the target audience. It motivates the visitor to explore theweb site and fulfill her need. It contains information of personal relevance. Itkeeps track of the values consistency (culturally held beliefs), needs and goals.It also assures a low customer risk and controls a moderate inconsistency withattitudes of the user. In order to gain this knowledge, the Motivation modulecollaborates with the Target Audience, Application and Discourse Expert mod-ules.The Ability module processes the information about the user characteristics,such as cognitive style, (dis)abilities, level of experience and knowledge. Its goalis to ensure that the generation process results in a presentation suited for auser with (dis)abilities, such as level of knowledge, level of experience, typeof cognitive style, motor-handicapped/poor-sighted, etc. In order to gain thisknowledge, the Ability module collaborates with the Target Audience and theDesign Expert modules.The Opportunity module processes the characteristics of the environmentand characteristics on the presentation of the web site, such structure, structureof content. Its goal is ensure that the generation process results in a presentationthat is adapted to the environment. The layout of the web site presentation isimproved and can be viewed by using that certain device, platform, networkspeed, etc. In order to gain this knowledge, the Opportunity module collaborateswith the Context, the Application and the Design Expert modules.5 Discussion and conclusionsThis paper introduces issues that originate from Persona Theory and SituatedAction framework. Rhetorical role-playing and a setting-driven approach can behelpful on the side of the enterprize and the customer within an eCommercesetting. Based on this we offer an explicit model for a tailor-made web sitepresentation in eCommerce web site setting. Following the advances on SRM-IMMPS research with respect to dynamic creation and generation of contentpresentations, we build upon the SRM by adding an additional OptimizationLayer. This way, we aim at generating meaningful and satisfactory presentations,for visitors who recognize the role they need to play in order to find what theyare looking for.The power of the Optimization Layer is twofold. On the one hand, the Opti-mization Layer processes the data from the Knowledge Server experts and sendsit to the Generation Process in order to guide the generation of the most ap-propriate presentation (setting, rhetorical role-playing adaptive) for the currentvisitor. This makes it easier to perform precise usability evaluations. On theother hand, the number of different presentations from the same web site is notinfinite. This will not only decrease the time for automatic generation, but itwill also make it easier to trace the number of scenarios within a certain setting.This way a further user adaptation based on the Visitor Profile is facilitated. Apossible disadvantage of the approach is the fact that the web site presentationis no longer suitable for visitors who are not part of the target audience, but whoare potential customers. It could also be the case that the information exchangedamong the Knowledge Experts conflicts.To summarize: altering the SRM from a Situated Action and Persona Theoryperspective, provides means for satisfaction-level evaluation of the presentationwithin the process of web design. This is an additional step to fulfilling variouscustomer needs, within, but not restricted to, eCommerce settings.References[1] Bordegoni, M., Faconti, G., Feiner, S., Maybury, M., Rist, T., Ruggieri,S., Trahanias, P., and Wilson, M. A standard reference model for intelligentmultimedia presentation systems. Computer Standards and Interfaces 18, 6-7(December 1997), 477–496.[2] Coney, M. B. Technical readers and their rhetorical roles. IEEE Transactionson Professional Communication 35, 2 (June 1992), 58–63.[3] Coney, M. B., and Steehouder, M. F. Role playing on the web: Guidelinesfor designing and evaluating personas online. Technical Communication 37, 3(August 2000), 327–340.[4] Hoyer, W., and MacInnis, D. Consumer behaviour, 2 ed. Houghton MifflinCompany, 2001.[5] Kobsa, A. J., and Pohl, W. Personalized hypermedia presentation techniquesfor improving online customer relationships. The Knowledge Engineering Review16, 2 (2001), 111–155.[6] Loeber, S. G., and Cristea, A. A www information-seeking process model.The 8th International Conference of The International Society for the Study ofEuropean Ideas, July 2002. To appear in workshop CBMO 2002.[7] Mann, W., Matthiessen, C., and Thompson, S. Rhetorical structure theoryand text analysis. ISI Research Report ISIIRR-89-242, University of SouthernCalifornia, Information Science Institute California, November 1989.[8] Suchman, L. A. Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machinecommunication. Cambridge University Press, 1987.[9] van Ossenbruggen, J., Hardman, L., and Rutledge, L. Hypermedia andthe Semantic web: A research agenda. Tech. Rep. INS-R0105, CWI, 2001.[10] Zeldman, J. Designing your audience. A list apart: for people who make websitesby Jeffrey Zeldman and Brian M. Platz, 1999-2001.

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