Adaptation and Personalization of Web-based Multimedia Content

A traditional multimedia system presents the same static content and suggests the same next page to all users, even though they might have widely differing knowledge of the subject. Such a system suffers from an inability to be all things to all people, especially when the user population is relatively diverse; users often lose sight of the goal of their inquiry, look for stimulating rather than informative material, or even use the navigational features unwisely. Moreover, new developments in ICT along with the growth of mobile and wireless communication allowed service providers to develop new ways of interactions through a variety of channels enabling users to become accustomed to new means of multimedia-based service consumption in an anytime, anywhere and anyhow manner, but developing more demanding requirements. To this end, researchers and practitioners studied adaptivity and personalization to address the comprehension and orientation difficulties presented in such systems to alleviate the navigational difficulties and instead, satisfy the heterogeneous needs of the mobile user. This chapter investigates the emergence of the mobile and wireless technology and the new multi-channel constraints and opportunities, as well as the new mobile user needs that arise. Furthermore, it examines the relationship between the adaptation and personalization research considerations and proposes a three-layer architecture for adaptation and personalization of Web-based multimedia content based on the “new” user profile with visual, emotional and cognitive processing parameters incorporated.