Enhancing the adaptivity of an existing Website with an epiphyte recommender system

In this paper we propose an approach to enhance the adaptivity of an existing Website by plugging on top of it (“epiphyte approach”) a recommender system that displays additional tips and functionalities in a separate window. The recommender system analyzes the way the user browses through the Website according to predefined prototypical ways of using the Website (“models of use”) and then proposes information or functionalities that appear useful according to this model of use. Different models of use can be identified, each of them corresponding to a “logical extension” of the original Website. Associating an existing Website with such logical extensions therefore allows enhancing its adaptivity whilst (1) not modifying the original Website and (2) facilitating the evolution of the adaptive features as this only requires modifying the recommender system. This approach can be used as an alternative and/or in association with other approaches related in the literature.