This article gives a comprehensive overview of techniques for personalised hypermedia presentation. It describes the data about the computer user, the computer usage and the physical environment that can be taken into account when adapting hypermedia pages to the needs of the current user. Methods for acquiring these data, for representing them as models in formal systems and for making generalisations and predictions about the user based thereon are discussed. Different types of hypermedia adaptation to the individual user's needs are distinguished and recommendations for further research and applications given. While the focus of the article is on hypermedia adaptation for improving customer relationship management utilising the World Wide Web, many of the techniques and distinctions also apply to other types of personalised hypermedia applications within and outside the World Wide Web, like adaptive educational systems.

No abstract

No abstract

We conducted a comparative study of the usability of hierarchically structured and zoomable Electronic Product Catalogs (EPC). After evaluating 16 hierarchical EPC available online today we constructed a test search interface and used it for comparison with InfoZoom, a novel interface utilizing a compression technique, direct manipulation, and zooming. 26 users, who were new to the InfoZoom Interface, but familiar with the Web environment, were studied in their use of one of these catalog types. Performance on both types of interfaces was assessed in terms of search speed, accuracy, efficiency, and user satisfaction. Both interfaces had positive evaluations, but behavioral data and performance data suggest that users valued their interaction with InfoZoom more.

41Personalization is managed by the humanIT Dynamic Personalization Server (DPS) [4], an open, standards-based, and platform-independent tool that provides essential user-modeling services to user-adaptive applications (see Figure 2). To produce the personalized list of top news, the publishing system queries the DPS Directory Component for a customer's (presumed) interests. It uses the DPS response to in turn query the content management system and news database for relevant news items that match the interest profile returned by the DPS.Whereas previous user-modeling systems stored data about users in database and knowledge representation systems [1, 2], DPS employs a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)-based directory management system [3]. This offers significant advantages with respect to the:• Management and retrieval of (userrelated) information, which is compliant with widely established standards allowing for easy integration. • Addition of new information types to the set of predefined types, which allows for flexibility as sites and personalization goals evolve. • Distribution of information across a network leading to better performance, scalability, availability, and reliability. T T he N24 Web site [6] belongs to a network of sites operated by Kirch Group that complement associated television stations inGermany. The relaunch of the N24 site focuses on tighter integration with the N24 cable news brand, targeting managers in need of accurate real-time information delivery in the areas of investing, business, politics, and sports. The goals of personalization [5] include creating a one-to-one relationship with existing customers; providing direct access to personally relevant news; seamlessly integrating with the existing infrastructure, including content and its classification; and collecting information about user interests for driving cross-channel customer relationship management (CRM) activities.From the perspective of a registered user, the N24 site offers a "My News" section on the N24 home page (see Figure 1) that provides a personalized selection of "Top Five" news headlines with direct links to the respective full-text versions of news items. This news selection is dynamically updated in real time as users interact with the N24 site.