Both customization and personalization tailor content and features to specific characteristics of users, so that different visitors see different things on the “same” page. Is there a difference between them? Yes. Which one is better? It depends on your goals and implementation.

Definitions

Personalization is done by the system being used. Developers set up the system to identify users and deliver to them the content, experience, or functionality that matches their role. Personalization can be done down at the individual level (e.g., Amazon.com’s suggestions based on past browsing and purchase history), or at group or audience level (e.g., an intranet displaying information specific to those in a certain location or a certain role, such as a job function).

Customization is done by the user. A system may enable users to customize or make changes to the experience to meet their specific needs by configuring layout, content, or system functionality. Customization may involve moving items around an interface to reflect the users’ priorities, selecting topics of interest, or altering colors or other factors related to the visual design of an interface, for example.

Why Personalize?

The main goal of personalization is to deliver content and functionality that matches specific user needs or interests, with no effort from the targeted users. The system profiles the user and adjusts the interface according to that profile. Personalization may deliver or emphasize particular information, restrict or grant access to certain tools, or simplify transactions and processes by remembering information about a user.

On a travel site, a user may see promotions and specials for locations they’ve visited before or recently searched for. On an intranet, personalization could remove access to a tool intended only for certain employees. In an app, personalization might retain past searches to enable quick access to information that might be of interest again. In none of these instances do users need to take any action to make these changes: the system makes the call based on the identity of the user.

There are two types of personalization:

  • Role-based personalization: users are grouped together according to certain characteristics that are well-defined and known in advance (as opposed to being inferred by the computer based on each user’s interaction history). This is particularly common on intranets where HR databases typically hold substantial data about each employee. For example, only employees who participate in the company’s retirement plan would be shown the option of reviewing their retirement account on their personalized benefits dashboard.
  • Individualized personalization: this sounds like a redundant word pairing, but should be seen in contrast to the role-based personalization. Here, the computer creates a model of each individual user and presents different things to each person. For example (and somewhat controversially), the computer might infer that a user is pregnant based on her searches and/or recent purchase history.
The Intermountain Healthcare intranet offered content tailored both to a specific role (e.g, manager) and to a specific individual (tasks, policies, forms and reports directly applicable to the user).
Amazon.com offered individualized suggestions based on past purchases and browsing behaviors.

The upside of personalization is an improved user experience that doesn’t require any extra effort from the users because the computer does all the work. The downside is that we’re at the mercy of the computer’s ability to guess what each user needs. Also, some users may feel that it’s unnerving if the computer is too good at guessing certain things about them.

Why Customize?

Customization lets users make their own selections about what they want to see, or set preferences for how information is organized or displayed. It can enhance user experience because it allows users to control their interaction.

Customization might allow users to track weather for a set of cities beyond their current location — such as frequent travel destinations or locations of friends and family. It may allow an intranet user to create a list of My Links to frequently needed pages. Or it may allow a user to move content around a homepage to match specific interests.

BBC News Android app: Users could select the news topics in which they were interested and access them quickly in the My News section of the app.

The upside of customization is that each user can get exactly what they want, because they are in control. The downside is that many users don’t know what they actually need and that most users are not interested in doing the work required to tweak the user interface to match their preferences.

For Both, Start with a Usable Site

Personalization and customization both have the ability to enhance a user’s experience on a site, but they should not be used as a fix for a broken site. If users struggle to find information of interest on a site, the solution may not be to implement personalization or customization, but instead to fix the underlying site structure or even the content that is presented.

Customization works well under the assumption that users know best what their goals and needs are. Thus, it is based on natural intelligence (the users’) over artificial intelligence (the system’s). On the other hand, personalization is based on artificial intelligence (about a user or a group of users) gathered by the system over time. It can work well if users do not know exactly what they need and must filter through a large information space. To be successful, the system’s artificial intelligence must be relevant and in sync with users’ needs.

Customization imposes higher interaction cost: users must take the time to configure the site in a way that is optimal for them. On the other hand, with personalization, all the work is done by the system.

Designers often have many good ideas for things that can be provided to users, from ideation, feature requests, and other sources. It’s tempting to throw all these options into the system and rely on customization or personalization for pruning the screens into a manageable level of complexity. This temptation should be resisted: it’s the designer’s job to prioritize the ideas and create a tight base-level design that can subsequently be augmented through personalization and customization.

Personalization and customization should enhance an already good experience, rather than try to fix a poor one. They should be used thoughtfully, with a clear purpose. Consider that both customization and personalization require work and maintenance over time. Personalization requires regular reviews to make sure the right content is going to the right profiles, and customization needs to allow users to make changes as interests or preferences change.