Pragmatic user modelling for complex commercial systems

Abstract

While user modelling has become a mature field, with demonstrable research systems of great power, comparatively little progress has been made in the development of user modelling components for commercial software systems. The development of minimalist user modelling components, which are simplified to provide "just enough" assistance to a user through a pragmatic adaptive user interface, is seen by many as an important step toward this goal. This thesis describes the development, implementation, and empirical evaluation of a minimalist user modelling component for the Tax and Investment Management Strategizer (TIMS), a complex commercial software system for financial management. The experimental results demonstrate that a minimalist user modelling component improves the subjective measure of user satisfaction. Important issues and considerations for the development of user modelling components for commercial software systems are also discussed.