Personalization allows a system to identify a user as a specific type or individual, and to deliver appropriate content and functionality to that user. Personalization targets experiences to users with the intent of delivering what they need when they need it. However, personalization needs to be carefully implemented to ensure ongoing success.
Here are some guidelines for creating a successful personalized experience:
1. Assign roles carefully.
When done well, personalization can enhance an experience by presenting the right information to the right user at the right time. However, if a user is tagged as the wrong “type,” personalization can result in a frustrating experience that might annoy the user at every visit, or worse, keep them from using the system altogether.
Personalization is a best guess at what might be helpful to the user based on data analysis, but past behavior does not always predict future actions. For instance, tying a personalized experience too closely to one action or transaction can result in presenting information that is far too specific compared to a user’s broader interests. A shopper who bought a book about responsive design may have purchased it for a course, for work, or even for a colleague, when she typically enjoys topics such as Korean pop music, crossword puzzles, or the Tudors. Pegging such a customer as “interested in technology” may be inaccurate and too restrictive.
Be cautious with the source of the data used for personalization. For example, when you personalize information by location or role for an intranet, the database that stores this information must be kept up-to-date. We’ve heard several intranet teams complain that they would like to implement personalization, but they do not have a reliable database from which to draw their data. Ensure that the source of your data is reliable in order to provide the best experience for users.
2. Restrict access sparingly.
Many personalized experiences add content or reshuffle content rather than removing access to it. For instance, Amazon.com does not restrict users’ access to products because of their past experiences on the site. Instead, it uses personalization to promote products that match the users’ interests based on past site behavior.
In some instances, there may well be good reason to use personalization to remove access to certain information. Examples include restricting a minor’s access to particular content or limiting employee access to a site section intended for employees in other areas of the world. An employee in South Africa may not need access to Human Resources policies for Germany. In fact, having such access may cause confusion when users stumble upon the wrong policy information.
However, users have different needs at different times. For instance, our research about university websites found that prospective students sometimes looked to the Alumni section of sites to get a feel for life after graduation. If a site pigeon-holed a user as a prospective student and removed or restricted access to alumni information, that prospective student would miss out on some key information or get the idea that the site (or school) did not adequately support alumni.
3. Don’t create more roles than you can support.
As you set up personalization systems, you need to make sure you can provide content relevant to all the roles. Several winning intranet teams in our Intranet Design Annuals reported they had previously been carried away with the ability to segment their user groups, only to later realize they had created so many user segments that maintenance was impossible or too time consuming.
Remember that for personalization to work, you must have the content to deliver to those roles. Content creators can struggle to select the right target audience(s) for content when the divisions of users are too fine grained. Personalizing by broader characteristics, such as location, department or management level can sometimes be more successful than getting to down to more detailed and nuanced profiles.
4. Personalize functionality as well as content.
Personalization can — and should — go beyond content. Personalize processes or functionality to streamline users’ experiences. Autofill fields where users’ information is known (though always make sure that that the autofilled information is editable in case it is inaccurate or needs to be updated — and save any updates for later use).
Remember frequent selections from previous activities. If, on every weekly timesheet, a user reported spending 100% of the time in administrative work, present that selection first.
Remember recent or frequent actions and searches, as appropriate, to let users access commonly used information quickly. If half of a user’s searches in a mapping application are to find directions home, make it simple for a user to select “home” as a destination. (Uber has “home” as a customizable address, but goes further in frequently giving personalized one-click access to the departure point for the user’s previous trip, covering the common use case of a round-trip excursion with a return to the user’s hotel or other base.)
Periodically save progress in longer experiences or workflows, letting users pick up where they left off, even across devices. A user watching “Game of Thrones” on a tablet should be able to continue binge watching later on her phone, as an example of seamless omnichannel interaction.
5. Provide an out, as appropriate.
Even the best-planned systems can go awry.
As personalization has become increasingly possible on intranets throughout the years, we’ve seen an increase in the number of sites that provide an “out” to personalization, often for troubleshooting purposes. One concern with personalization is that it results in an experience that differs for each user or at least each user type, which can make troubleshooting difficult Managers can’t tell their employees where to look on the intranet if that link or section does not appear in the employees’ version of the site.
In response, in recent years, we’ve seen more intranets offer a View as functionality that allows employees to see another user type’s view of content. This feature shows how the site is organized from another role’s viewpoint. (LinkedIn has a similar feature to allow you to see how your profile will look to other users.)
Providing an “out” can be as simple as allowing users access to information other than that which was personalized to them. For instance, a weather app may focus on a user’s primary location, but allow that user to also enter alternate locations. A news site may prioritize local information but allow access to all articles.
Personalization is based on system’s assumptions about the users’ needs based on past behavior. Users rarely have any control over these assumptions. As we move into a world with more and more “smart” devices, we need to make sure that users can override these personalized settings if they go against their needs. Consider a colleague who was forced to wear a sweater in her own home due to her smart thermostat overruling her preferences. As appliances and devices continue to learn about our behaviors and make choices for us based on them, it will become ever-more important for designers and developers to allow adequate user control even in such “smart” systems.
6. Review roles regularly.
Personalization is your best guess at what would be helpful to users based on user characteristics or past behaviors. User and business needs can change over time, so it is smart to regularly review personalized aspects of the site to make sure they are successful.
Look at traffic to the content pushed to different profiles — are users reading or reacting to the content in expected ways?
Keep track of complaints you receive from users that are related to personalization.
Review the sources of your personalization data to make sure they are staying up-to-date and accurate. A personalization effort may have begun with a newly implemented or recently cleaned-up database, but may have not been updated ever since.
Regular review of personalization efforts can enhance their usefulness over time.
Summary
Personalization has the ability to create a streamlined and focused experience for users. The best personalized experiences combine careful planning with detailed execution to deliver the right information to the right users.
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