2018/04/09 by Nava Tintarev, Shahin Rostami, Barry Smyth · 1 citation
Computer Science · Business, Management and Accounting · #Recommender Systems and Techniques #Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing #Image and Video Quality Assessment
paper · doi:10.1145/3167132.3167419
openalex publication_date 2018/04/09 · openalex created_date 2018/07/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
In this paper we consider how to help users to better understand their consumption profiles by examining two approaches to visualising user profiles - chord diagrams, and bar charts - aimed at revealing to users those regions of the recommendation space that are unknown to them, i.e. blind-spots. Both visualisations do this by connecting profile preferences with a filtered recommendation space. We compare and contrast the two visualisations in a live user study (n = 70). The results suggest that, although users can understand both visualisations, chord diagrams are particularly effective in helping users to identify blind-spots, while simpler bar charts are better for conveying what was already known in a profile. Evaluating the understandability of blind-spot visualizations is a first step toward using visual explanations to help address a criticism of recommender systems: that personalising information creates filter bubbles.