RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF KNOWLEDGE-BASED CONVERSATIONAL RECOMMENDER APPLICATIONS WITH ADVISOR SUITE
Keywords:
Interactive Recommender Systems, Model-driven Web Application DevelopmentAbstract
Knowledge-based recommender systems are Web-based applications that exploit deep domain knowledge for generating buying proposals that match the individual needs and requirements of an online user. As in many domains the detailed customer requirements have to be elicited in an interactive dialog before the recommendation can be made, the development and in particular also the maintenance of the dynamic Web pages that form this personalized dialog are critical tasks, mostly because of the typically strong interdependencies between the recommendation and personalization knowledge. In this paper, we present ADVISOR SUITE, an integrated, domain-independent environment for the development of highly-interactive, personalized recommender applications. The main pillars of the presented system are a) an integrated, model-driven approach for designing all the required recommendation-, personalization- and interaction knowledge, and b) a mechanism that allows for the automatic generation of Web applications, which is of particular importance in prototyping-based, evolutionary development approaches. On the basis of the experiences we have made with the system in several industrial projects, we finally summarize key criteria and best practices of how to efficiently develop high-quality recommender applications with ADVISOR SUITE.
Downloads
References
Adomavicius, G., Tuzhilin, A., Toward the next generation of recommender systems: a survey of the state-ofthe-
art and possible extensions. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 17, 6 (2005), 734-
Ardissono, L., Felfernig, A., Friedrich, G., Goy, A., Jannach, D., Petrone, G., Schäfer, R., and Zanker, M., A
Framework for the Development of Personalized, Distributed Web-Based Configuration Systems, AI
Magazine, 24(3), 2003, 93-110.
Baumeister, H., Knapp, A., Koch, N., and Zhang, G., Modeling Adaptivity with Aspects. In: Lowe, D.,
Gaedke, M. (Eds.): Web Engineering, 5th Interl. Conf., Springer LNCS 3579, 2005, 406-416.
Bleek, W., Jeenicke, M., and Klischewski, R., Developing Web-based applications through e-Prototyping,
Proc. of 26th Interl. Computer Software and Applications Conf., 2002, 609-614.
Burke, R., Knowledge-based recommender systems. Encyclopedia of Library & Information Systems, 69, 32
(2000).
Branting, K., Lester, J., and Mott, B., Dialogue management for conversational case-based reasoning. In
Proc. of the 7th European Conference on Case-Based Reasoning, 2004, 77-90.
Bridge, D., Towards Conversational Recommender Systems: A Dialogue Grammar Approach, Proceedings
of the Workshop in Mixed-Initiative Case-Based Reasoning, Workshop Programme at 6th European
Conference in Case-Based Reasoning, 2002, 9-22.
Brusilovsky, P., Methods and Techniques of Adaptive Hypermedia, User Modeling and User-Adapted
Interaction, Vol. 6(2/3), 87-129, 1996.
Burnett, M., HCI research regarding end-user requirement specification: a tutorial. Knowledge-Based
Systems, 16 (2003), 341-349.
Carenini, G., Smith, J., and Poole, D., Towards more Conversational and Collaborative Recommender
Systems, Proc. of 8th interl conf on Intelligent user Interfaces, 2003, 12-18.
Chai, J.Y., Budzikowska, M., Horvath, V., Nicolov, N., Kambhatla, N., and Zadrozny,W., Natural Language
Sales Assistant - A Web-Based Dialog System for Online Sales, Proceedings IAAI'01, 2001, 19-26.
Ceri, S., Fraternali, P., and Matera, M., Conceptual Modeling of Data-Intensive Web Applications, IEEE
Internet Computing, 6(4), 2002, 20-30.
Ceri, S., Daniel, F., Matera, M., and Facca, F., Model-driven Development of Context-Aware Web
Applications. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, 7(2), 2007.
Crane, D., Pascarello, E., and Darren, J., Ajax in Action, Manning Publications, 2005.
Felfernig, A., Gula, B., An Empirical Study on Consumer Behavior in the Interaction with Knowledge-based
Recommender Applications, IEEE Joint Conference on e-Commerce Technology (CEC’06) and Enterprise
Computing, E-Commerce and E-Services (EEE'06), 2006, 288-296.
Felfernig, A., Shchekotykhin, K., Debugging User Interface Descriptions of Knowledge-based Recommender
Applications, Proceedings of ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, 2006, 234-241.
Felfernig, A., Isak, K., and Russ, C., Knowledge-based Recommendation: Technologies and Experiences
from Projects, in Proceedings 17th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI06), 2006, 632-636.
Felfernig, A., Kiener, A., Knowledge-based Interactive Selling of Financial Services with FSAdvisor, 17th
Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI'05), 2005, 1475-1482.
Felfernig, A., Friedrich, G., Jannach, D., and Zanker, M., An Integrated Environment for the Development of
Knowledge-Based Recommender Applications, Intl. Journal of Electronic Commerce, Special issue on
Recommender Systems, 11(2) 2006-7, 11-34.
Felfernig, A. and Shchekotykhin, K., Debugging User Interface Descriptions of Knowledge-based
Recommender Applications, in Paris, C. and Sidner, C. (Eds): Proc. of ACM International Conference on
Intelligent User Interfaces, 234–241, 2006.
Frasincar, F., Houben, G.J., and Vdovjak, R., Specification Framework for Engineering Adaptive Web
Applications, Proceedings, 11th World Wide Web Conference (WWW’02) – Web Engineering Track, 2002.
Garrigós, I, Gómez, J., Barna, P., and Houben, G.-J., A reusable personalization model in Web application
design, Web Information Systems Modeling Workshop at ICWE’05, 2005, 42-49.
Garrigós, I., Gómez, J., and Canchero, C., Modeling Dynamic Personalization in Web Applications,
Proceedings Intl. Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE’03), Springer LNCS 2722, 2003, 472-475.
Gomez, J., Cachero, C.: Information OO-H Method: extending UML to model Web Interfaces, in van
Bommel, P., Modeling for Internet Applications, 2003, 144–173
Goodwill, J., Mastering JSP Custom Tags and Tag Libraries, 2002.
Herlocker, J., Konstan, J., Terveen, L., and Riedl, J., Evaluating collaborative filtering recommender systems.
ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 22, 1 (2004), 5–53.
Itoh, K., Kumagai, S., and Hirota, T. (Eds.), Domain Oriented Systems Development: Perspectives and
Practices, 2003
Jacyntho, M.D., Schwabe, D., and Rossi, G., A Software Architecture for Structuring complex Web
Applications, Journal of Web Engineering, 1(1), 2002, 37-60.
Jiang, B., Wang, W., and Benbasat, I., Multimedia-based interactive advising technology for online consumer
decision support. Communications of ACM, 48, 9 (2005), 93-98.
Jannach D., Kreutler G., Personalized User Preference Elicitation for e-Services. In: Cheung W., Hsu J.
(Eds.): IEEE International conference on e-Technology, e-Commerce and e-Service, 2005, 604-611.
Jannach D., Finding Preferred Query Relaxations in Content-based Recommenders, Proceedings of IEEE
Intelligent Systems Conference IS'2006, 355-360.
Jannach D., ADVISOR SUITE - A knowledge-based sales advisory system. In: R. Lopez de Mantaras, L. Saitta
(Eds.): Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2004), 720-724.
Jannach D., Kreutler, G., A Knowledge-Based Framework for the Rapid Development of Conversational
Recommenders. In: X. Zhou, S. Su, M. Papazoglou, M. Orlowska, K. Jeffery (Eds.): Web Information
Systems – WISE’04, 2004, 390-402.
Jannach D., Kreutler, G., Advisor Suite: A Tool for Rapid Development of Maintainable Online Sales
Advisory Systems. In: N. Koch, P. Fraternali, M. Wirsing (Eds.): Web Engineering, 4th International
Conference, ICWE’04, Springer LNCS 3140, 2004, 266-270.
Jannach, D., Zanker, M., Knowledge-based sales advisory – Experiences and future directions, Proc. of Intl.
Conference on E-Business, 2006, 200-208.
Kappl, G., Web Engineering. Discipline of Systematic Development of Web Applications, 2006.
Kobsa, A., Koenemann, J., and Pohl, W., Personalized Hypermedia Presentation Techniques for Improving
Online Customer Relationships, Knowledge Engineering Review, 16(2), 2001, 11-155.
Koch, N., Kraus, A., The expressive Power of UML-based Web Engineering. Second Int. Worskhop on Weboriented
Software Technology (IWWOST’02), 2002.
Konstan, J.A., Miller, B.N., Maltz, D., Herlocker, J.L., Gordon, L.R., and Riedl, J., GroupLens: applying
collaborative filtering to Usenet news, Comm. of ACM, 40(3), 1997, 77-87.
Krasner G.E., Pope S. T., A Description of the Model-View-Controller User Interface Paradigm in the
Smalltalk-80 System, 1988.
Kruchten, P., Rational Unified Process. An Introduction (3rd Ed.), 2004.
Lima, F., Schwabe, D., Application Modeling for the Semantic Web. Proceedings of LA-Web 2003, 93-102.
McSherry, D., Incremental Relaxation of Unsuccessful Queries. Proceedings of the European Conference on
Case Based Reasoning, 2004, 331-345.
McSherry, D., Retrieval Failure and Recovery in Recommender Systems, Artificial Intelligence Review,
(3&4), 2005, 319-338.
Mirzadeh, N., Ricci, F., and Bansal, M., Supporting User Query Relaxation in a Recommender System,
LNCS 3182, 2004, 31-40.
Muller, P.A., Studer, P., Fondement, F., and Bezivin, J., Platform independent Web application modeling and
development with Netsilon, Software & Systems Modeling, 4(4), 2005, 242-442.
Nunes, D.A, Schwabe, D., Rapid prototyping of web applications combining domain specific languages and
model driven design. Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Web Engineering, 2006, pp. 153-
Object Management Group, Software Process Engineering Metamodel Specification (SPEM), Version 1.1.,
http://www.omg.org, January 2005.
Schafer, J., Konstan, J., Riedl, J., Electronic Commerce recommender applications. Journal of Data Mining
and Knowledge Discovery, 5, 1/2 (2000), 115-152.
Ricci, F., Venturini, A., Cavada, D., Mirzadeh, N., Blaas, D., and Nones, M. Product Recommendation with
Interactive Query Management and Twofold Similarity. 5th International Conference on Case-Based
Reasoning. Trondheim, 2003, 479-493.
Ricci, F., Del Missier, F., Supporting Travel Decision Making through Personalized Recommendation. In:
Clare-Marie Karat, Jan Blom, and John Karat (Eds.), Designing Personalized User Experiences for
eCommerce, 2004, 221-251.
Rossi, G., Schwabe, D., and Guimaraes, R. M., Designing Personalized Web Applications, Proceedings of
Intl. World Wide Web Conference (WWW’01), 2001, 275-284.
Schäfer, R., Rules for using multi-attribute utility theory for estimating a user's interests. In Proc. of Agent
Based Information Systems Workshop (ABIS'01), 2001.
Smyth, B., Rafter, R., Conversational Collaborative Recommendation - An Experimental Analysis, Artificial
Intelligence Review, 24 (2/3), 2005, 301-318.
Stahl, T., Vylter, M., and Czarnecki, K., Model-Driven Software Development: Technology, Engineering,
Management, 2006.
Reilly, J., McCarthy, K., McGinty, L., and Smyth, B., Incremental critiquing. Knowledge.-Based Systems, 18
(4-5), 2005, 143-151.
Schwabe, D., Rossi, G., and Barbosa, S. D., Systematic hypermedia application design with OOHDM. Proc.
th ACM Conf. on Hypertext, 1996, 116-128.
Schwabe, D., Guimaraes, R., and Rossi, G., Cohesive Design of Personalized Web Applications. IEEE
Internet Computing, 6 (2), 2002, 34-43.
Terveen, L., Hill, W., Beyond recommender systems: Helping people help each other. HCI in the New
Millennium, 2001.
Thompson, C., Göker, M., and Langley, P., A Personalized System for Conversational Recommendations.
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 21, 2004, 393-428.
Vdovjak, R., Frasincar, F., Houben, G. J., and Barna, P., Engineering semantic Web information systems in
Hera. Journal of Web Engineering, 2(1&2), 2003, 3-026.
von Winterfeldt, D., and Edwards, W., Decision Analysis and Behavioral Research, 1986.
Zanker, M., Bricman, M., Gordea, S., Jannach, D., and Jessenitschnig, M., Persuasive online-selling in
quality & taste domains. In: Bauknecht, K., Pröll B., Werthner, H. (Eds.): Proc. of 7th Interl Conf. on
Electronic Commerce and Web Tech., Springer LNCS 4082, 2006, pp. 51-60.