Evaluating the impact of proactivity in the user experience of a context-aware restaurant recommender for Android smartphones

Proactivity has recently gained much attention in the area of cyber physical systems as sensing the users’ real world environment is needed to achieve it. Proactive recommenders are a good example because they push recommendations to the user when the current situation seems appropriate, without explicit user request. Evaluating whether users would accept proactive recommendations, how to properly notify them and how to present recommended items are important research questions. In this article, we present the scenario related to a context-aware restaurant recommender for Android smartphones. Two options to achieve proactivity have been designed: a widget- and a notification-based solution. In addition, our mobile user interface includes a visualization of recommended items and allows for user feedback. The approach was evaluated in a survey among users with good results regarding usefulness and effectiveness. The results also showed that test users preferred the widget-based solution in terms of user experience.