Personalization and customization different based upon the concepts of control and agency
A normal person hearing the
words personalization and customization may not think there is much
of a difference between the two. However, in terms of web interfaces,
these two words could not be more different.
Personalization is when the interface and webpage adapts to the user without the user going out of his or her way to make any changes. A very simple example of this are the recommenced videos that appear on the YouTube homepage. Every time someone watches a video, YouTube keeps track of what video was watched and what that video is associated with. If I watch a video of Radiohead's live performance at the Reading Festival in 2008, YouTube now knows that I like Radiohead, and the next time I come to YouTube there will be videos related to Radiohead such as the music video for their song "Karma Police."
On the other hand, customization is the concept of the user actively changing and modifying the interface based on their own preference. A good example of this is the very website you, the reader, are using right now. Blogger allows users to customize their blog to their own needs and wants. One can change the theme of the blog, the layout of the posts, and add a variety of gadgets to the page such as the twitter feed that you see on the right side of this page. If I so desire, I can remove that gadget or move it to a completely different section of the blog.
Personalization places the website in control of the information that a user sees, while customization gives all control to the user. The former is more focused on the results, the relevance of the information to the user, while the latter is more focused on giving the user agency. Agency is the idea of control and freedom to make one’s own decisions. Customization serves to give users agency through the ability to actively make the website “their own.” Personalization is passive in the sense that the user does not seek to make changes, rather, the changes “just happen.”
Personalization is when the interface and webpage adapts to the user without the user going out of his or her way to make any changes. A very simple example of this are the recommenced videos that appear on the YouTube homepage. Every time someone watches a video, YouTube keeps track of what video was watched and what that video is associated with. If I watch a video of Radiohead's live performance at the Reading Festival in 2008, YouTube now knows that I like Radiohead, and the next time I come to YouTube there will be videos related to Radiohead such as the music video for their song "Karma Police."
On the other hand, customization is the concept of the user actively changing and modifying the interface based on their own preference. A good example of this is the very website you, the reader, are using right now. Blogger allows users to customize their blog to their own needs and wants. One can change the theme of the blog, the layout of the posts, and add a variety of gadgets to the page such as the twitter feed that you see on the right side of this page. If I so desire, I can remove that gadget or move it to a completely different section of the blog.
Personalization places the website in control of the information that a user sees, while customization gives all control to the user. The former is more focused on the results, the relevance of the information to the user, while the latter is more focused on giving the user agency. Agency is the idea of control and freedom to make one’s own decisions. Customization serves to give users agency through the ability to actively make the website “their own.” Personalization is passive in the sense that the user does not seek to make changes, rather, the changes “just happen.”
Privacy and power usage are directly linked due to one's perception of control and convenience
The results of a study on user's response to both personalization and customization suggested that
in a low privacy environment as power usage increases in a User-Initiated
Customization (UIC) situation, perceived control and convenience increased,
while in a System-Initiated Personalization (SIP) situation, as power usage
increased, perceived control and convenience decreased. In a high privacy
environment, as power usage increases perceived control and convenience
increased; however, there was no significant difference between the two varying
degrees of tailoring.
It is quite interesting to find that users are actually significantly concerned with the use of their data as they utilize the web. I did not expect the introduction of privacy as a variable to so greatly affect the results seen in the second experiment. However, as society continues to become more and more integrated with the web and web-based services, it only makes sense that privacy becomes a bigger concerns for both power users and non-power users alike. I am still surprised that the results showed that power users favored the SIP in conditions of high privacy. I personally believed that power users would favor customization in either case; however, the results demonstrate that even power users favor convenience if they feel that their information is protected while utilizing personalized content.
It is quite interesting to find that users are actually significantly concerned with the use of their data as they utilize the web. I did not expect the introduction of privacy as a variable to so greatly affect the results seen in the second experiment. However, as society continues to become more and more integrated with the web and web-based services, it only makes sense that privacy becomes a bigger concerns for both power users and non-power users alike. I am still surprised that the results showed that power users favored the SIP in conditions of high privacy. I personally believed that power users would favor customization in either case; however, the results demonstrate that even power users favor convenience if they feel that their information is protected while utilizing personalized content.
Customization Found to be more Ethical
than Personalization
Another study looked at the ethical consequences of customization and personalization. Its results mirror the conclusions found regarding privacy in the previous study. The study concluded that customization is viewed more favorably from
an ethical standpoint as users were not having anything
forced upon them without their prior consent as is the case in personalization. In the graph, the results for one of the four groups is shown and one can see that customization tended to fare better than personalization across the board. It is important to note that, although each group varied in certain percentages, that customization had a greater percentage of the sample who found it of higher quality in comparison to personalized sites for all four groups.
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