Integrating Human Factors and Semantic Mark-ups in Adaptive Interactive Systems

This paper focuses on incorporating individual differences in cognitive processing and semantic mark-ups in the context of adaptive interactive systems. In particular, a semantic Web-based adaptation framework is proposed that enables Web content providers to enrich content and functionality of Web environments with semantic markups. The Web content is created using a Web authoring tool and is further processed and reconstructed by an adaptation mechanism based on cognitive factors of users. Main aim of this work is to investigate the added value of personalising content and functionality of Web environments based on the unique cognitive characteristics of users. Accordingly, a user study has been conducted that entailed a psychometric-based survey for extracting the users’ cognitive characteristics, combined with a real usage scenario of an existing commercial Web environment that was enriched with semantic mark-ups and personalised based on different adaptation effects. The paper provides interesting insights in the design and development of adaptive interactive systems based on cognitive factors and semantic mark-ups.