HCI 2015
International

Personalized Search: Potential and Pitfalls

Abstract

Traditionally search engines have returned the same results to everyone who asks the same question.  However, using a single ranking for everyone in every context at every point in time limits how well a search engine can do in providing relevant information.  In this talk I outline a framework to quantify the "potential for personalization” which we use to characterize the extent to which different people have different intents for a query.  I describe several examples of how we represent and use different kinds of contextual features to improve search quality for individuals.  Finally I conclude by highlighting important challenges in developing personalized systems at Web scale including control and transparency, serendipity, and evaluation.

Short Bio

Susan Dumais is a Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft and Deputy Managing Director of the Microsoft Research Lab in Redmond. Prior to joining Microsoft Research, she was at Bell Labs and Bellcore, where she worked on Latent Semantic Analysis, techniques for combining search and navigation, and organizational impacts of new technology. Her current research focuses on user modeling and personalization, context and search, temporal dynamics of information, and gaze-enhanced interaction. She has worked closely with several Microsoft groups (Bing, Windows Desktop Search, SharePoint, and Office Online Help) on search-related innovations. Susan has published widely in the fields of information science, human-computer interaction and cognitive science, and holds several patents on novel retrieval algorithms and interfaces. Susan is also an adjunct professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. She is Past-Chair of ACM's Special Interest Group in Information Retrieval (SIGIR), and serves on several editorial boards, technical program committees, and government panels. She was elected to the CHI Academy in 2005, an ACM Fellow in 2006, received the SIGIR Gerard Salton Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2009, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2011, received the ACM Athena Lecturer Award in 2014, and received the Tony Kent Strix Award in 2014.