Video from Strata + Hadoop World, Singapore Dec 2016
Most consumer-facing personalization today is rudimentary and coarsely targeted at best, and designers don’t give users cues for how they are meant to interact with and interpret personalized experiences and interfaces. And when personalization gets us wrong, the net effect is a negative experience.
Too much of personalization relies on assumptions about users’ needs rather than giving users opportunities to express their intent. Sara Watson makes the case for personalization signals that give context to personalization and expose levers of control to users. The line between personalization and discrimination is a blurry one. As this becomes more apparent to the public, more interactive approaches to personalization will be necessary to build consumers’ trust and account for the appropriate uses of their data.
