What is personalization in UX?

Personalization

Personalization is a process that allows designers to produce and modify user journeys according to the needs and preferences of specific users. It allows the individualization of products in real-time. The system uses user information to make changes to the interface in real-time. One example of personalization would be different apps addressing users by their name, e.g., “Hello Jane!” when they open the app.

Advantages of personalization

• Improves user engagement - delivering the appropriate message at the right time, i.e., personalized according to user needs in terms of content, time, and place.
• Makes the user feel valued - this increases affinity towards that particular design.
• Improved chance of the message being read - users will be more interested if the message is directed towards and about them rather than a generic message.
• Reduced cognitive overload - if instead of flooding users with all the information, only personalized content is shown, it keeps the user sane and comfortable. An example of this is Netflix showing recommendations according to user’s watch history.

Types of personalizations

There are different type of personalizations that target users in various ways:

Poor personalization

Care needs to be taken to balance personalization as it can have the opposite impact:

• Excessive personalization can creep out the user.

• Care needs to be taken that what user data is being used for personalization, as user consent is required.

No personalization is better than poor personalization as it can have the opposite impact.