A cross-cultural user evaluation of product recommender interfaces

We present a cross-cultural user evaluation of an organization-based product recommender interface, by comparing it with the traditional list view. The results show that it performed significantly better, for all study participants, in improving on their competence perceptions, including perceived recommendation quality, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, and positively impacting users' behavioral intentions such as intention to save effort in the next visit. Additionally, oriental users were observed reacting more significantly strongly to the organization interface regarding some subjective aspects, compared to western subjects. Through this user study, we also identified the dominating role of the recommender system's decision-aiding competence in stimulating both oriental and western users' return intention to an e-commerce website where the system is applied.