Mass customisation is today a major industrial paradigm, allowing the conciliation of mass production scale economies with the individual needs and preferences of customers. The web configurators are a central element of this approach, allowing users to personalise products or services directly online according to their preferences.
The literature on configuration technologies is huge. However, most resource studies focus on the reasoning side of the configurator (i.e., the backend), such as knowledge models, reasoning mechanisms, and constraint solving. The design of the user experience (UX) or the user interface (UI) is still less studied. Nevertheless, many studies show that the quality of the interface influences the configuration experience, user satisfaction, and the perceived value of the personalised product; moreover, some studies report the need to study them in greater depth.
To achieve this objective, a state-of-the-art review of web configurator design was first conducted to identify existing limitations and research gaps, followed by a second review focusing on the perceived values associated with web configurators. An introspection of 100 web configurators was then conducted to identify characteristics that may influence their UI/UX quality. In parallel, empirical studies involving both end-users and configurator designers were conducted to investigate users’ expectations and preferences and to examine whether these expectations are accurately understood by designers. A prototyping phase subsequently evaluated alternative design solutions, aiming to determine how users’ expectations can best be addressed within configurator interfaces and to identify the trade-offs that may be required in practice. Finally, after the design guidelines were developed, their effectiveness was evaluated through user studies, while their clarity, relevance, and applicability were assessed by configurator designers.
This research contributes to bridging the fields of configuration technologies and Human–Computer Interaction. It provides both a deeper understanding of the factors influencing user experience in web configurators and a comprehensive set of design guidelines that can be directly applied to develop more effective, more intuitive, and more user-centred web configurators.
The Jury
- Prof. Patrick Heymans - University of Namur, Belgium
- Prof. Florentin Rochet - University of Namur, Belgium
- Prof. Bruno Dumas - University of Namur, Belgium
- Prof. Tomi Männistö - University of Helsinki, Finland
- Prof. Jean Vanderdonckt - UCLouvain, Belgium
- Prof. Deepak Dhungana - IMC – University of Applied Sciences, Austria
