From Perceptual to Algorithmic Evaluation of Recommending Interfaces Survival in Visual Space

The design of recommending systems is mainly related to algorithms targeting customer needs, products, and service selection. However, even the most effective algorithms will not increase the performance of an e-commerce platform if the recommendation interface is not noticed by the user. Recommendations, like all other visual stimuli, can be subconsciously eliminated by users as a result of habituation identified for online environment as a banner blindness. This article presents the results of an experiment, in which the influence of the intensity of graphic elements within the interface on user attention was examined. The study explores the visual space and survival of graphic objects, analysed with the use of survival analysis instead of typical perceptual studies. Results show that an increase in visual intensity does not always lead to an increase in user attention, and survival analysis makes it possible to identify the differences between design variants and between users targeted with the same stimuli.