d4

Personalized content at a glance

Site Genre: Pattern Group d

magnify image Figure D4.1 One of the first sites to personalize content for each visitor, My Yahoo! provides news, weather, stock quotes, e-mail, and many other customizable options.

Background

PERSONAL E-COMMERCE (A1), NEWS MOSAICS (A2), and all the other site genres can benefit from personalized content. PAGE TEMPLATES (D1) provide the framework for CONTENT MODULES (D2) and HEADLINES AND BLURBS (D3), two of several mechanisms for displaying personalized content. This pattern provides the solution for personalizing content to individual visitors.

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PROBLEM

Personalized information can be more useful to people than generic information. However, engineering a dynamic site can produce less-than-satisfactory results if the basic structures and designs are not in place first.

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SOLUTION

magnify image FigureD4.9 A personalized site uses page templates and customer information to target content modules..

It is best not to force people to personalize your site before they can use it. Draw customers in by providing basic but valuable content to new customers that, later, can be personalized. Next, invite customers to personalize the site from a menu of options, using information that can be gathered quickly, such as their backgrounds and areas of interest. Gather this information by conducting interviews or by giving people the ability to edit their interests. Deduce what other things might interest your customers by tracking the areas of your site that they visit and scoring the information. Categorize the content and map it to the people who might find such content useful. Structure the site into page templates and content modules that receive content from the targeting engine.

Other Patterns to Consider

Target content to PAGE TEMPLATES (D1), CONTENT MODULES (D2), and CONSISTENT SIDEBARS OF RELATED CONTENT (I6) on the basis of information in each customer’s profile. Use the same information architecture designed for BROWSABLE CONTENT (B2) to lay out the options consistently with other pages. Provide ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT (H4) tools to let people see and edit their profile data. FAIR INFORMATION PRACTICES (E3), PRIVACY POLICY (E4), and PRIVACY PREFERENCES (E8) describe several legal issues that must be addressed when data about individuals is collected and stored. PERSONALIZED RECOMMENDATIONS (G3) are one form of personalized content tailored specifically for e-commerce.

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