Abstract
Adaptive Hypermedia Systems are systems that modify the different visible aspects based on the user profile. To provide this adaptation, the system is modeled according to a user model, which stores the information about each user. This information can include knowledge, interests, goals and tasks, background and skills, behavior, interaction preferences, individual traits and context of the user. This chapter goal is to introduce Adaptive Hypermedia Systems fundamentals and trends. In this context this chapter identifies some methods and techniques used to adapt the content, the presentation and the navigation of the system. In the end, some applications (ELM-ART, Interbook, AHA!, AdaptWeb®) and trends (standardization, data mining, social web, device adaptation and gamification) are exposed. As a result, this chapter highlights the importance of the improvement and the use of adaptive systems.
TopBackground
User model is the representation of information about an individual user, which is essential to make the AH system behave differently according to each user. Based on this model, the AH system can prioritize the most relevant results of a search, manipulate links to facilitate the navigation and present the content adaptively. During the user modeling, the amount and nature of the sorted user information depends on the kind of adaptation effect the AH system has to deliver (i.e., content, presentation and/or navigation) (Brusilovsky & Millán, 2007). The most common stored data are described below based on Brusilovsky & Millán (2007) and Schiaffino & Amandi (2009).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Local Non-Contextual Links: Are links independent from the content, being easy to manipulate and appearing as a set of buttons, links or a pop-up menu.
Links on Local or Global Hyperspace Maps: Appear on maps that represent a local area or even an entire hyperspace as a network of nodes connected by arrows. Using these maps, users can directly navigate to all visible nodes just by clicking on the representation of the desired node.
Links from Index or Content Pages: Appear on pages that contain only links presented in a fixed order (by alphabetical order for index pages and by content for content pages). These links are usually easy to manipulate, unless the page is implemented as an image.
Adaptable Hypermedia System: A hypermedia system that allows the user to customize its preferences in a non-automatic way.
Contextual Links or Real Hypertext Links: Links that can be embedded in the context of the page (e.g., using “hotwords” in texts, “hot spots” in images), but they cannot be removed. They are not easy to manipulate as the local non-contextual links.