EFFECTIVE PERSONALIZATION OF PUSH-TYPE SYSTEMS - VISUALIZING INFORMATION FRESHNESS

This paper discusses an effective personalization method, especially o n push-type systems. Many conventional personalization systems rely st rictly on personal interests during information presentation, but the ''freshness'' of information is often as important as the relation to personal preferences. For example, a user who accesses a WWW newspaper several times a day, expects to see fresh articles displayed in promi nent positions rather than ''hidden'' among articles that may be more relevant but that have already been read. This paper therefore present s a novel personalization method incorporating ''information freshness '' and that is extremely useful for the ever-growing number of push-ty pe systems. Information freshness is indicated by using a perspective representation which shows virtual depth on the screen: fresh articles seem ''closer'' to the user, while old articles seem father away. Thi s representation allows us to simultaneously display both the personal relevance and the freshness of the information. We have successfully implemented two applications using this technique: a personalized news paper service and an easy-to-use scrapbook for Web pages. (C) 1998 Pub lished by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.