PhD Thesis Defense Martijn Kagie on Online Shopping Interfaces

On May 19, Martijn Kagie defended his thesis entitled "Advances in Online Shopping Interfaces". His promotor is Prof. dr. P.J.F. Groenen, Professor in Statistics, Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam. His co-promotor is dr. M.C. van Wezel. Other members of the Doctoral Committee are Prof. dr. D. van den Poel, Prof. dr. ing. P.H.C. Eiler, Prof. dr. ir. R. Dekker, and Prof. dr. ir. U. Kaymak.

In his dissertation, Martijn Kagie introduces a framework to create map-based shopping interfaces. Its focus is specifically on how to position available products on a website and on the recommendation products to users.

Over the past two decades the internet has rapidly become an important medium to retrieve information, maintain social contacts, and to do online shopping. The latter has some important advantages over traditional shopping. Products are often cheaper on the internet, internet companies sell a wider collection of products, and consumers can buy items whenever they like without leaving their homes. On the other hand, the current state of online shops still has two major disadvantages over "real" shops: Products are often much harder to find than in traditional shops and there are no salesmen to advise the customers.

In his thesis, Kagie addresses both these disadvantages. He introduces and evaluates several new user interfaces for online shops that are based on representing products in maps instead of lists, such that products are easier to find. In these maps, similar products are located close to each other. To create these maps, statistical techniques such as multidimensional scaling are used.

Furthermore, he combines these maps with recommender systems to address the second disadvantage and to help the user in finding the product best suiting her needs. Also, he introduces a recommender system that is able to explain the recommendations it gives to users. Kagie thinks that the methods discussed in this thesis can form a basis for new promising online shopping interfaces both in research as in practice.

About Martijn Kagie
Martijn Kagie (1982) obtained his master’s degree in Informatics and Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam in November 2005. In January 2006, he started his PhD research. His research interests are in electronic commerce research, recommender systems, data visualization, and online shopping interfaces.

His research has been presented at several international conferences and has resulted in several papers of which five have been published or accepted for publication in AI Communications, Decision Support Systems, Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, and the Recommender Systems Handbook.

Abstract
Over the past two decades the internet has rapidly become an important medium to retrieve information, maintain social contacts, and to do online shopping. The latter has some important advantages over traditional shopping. Products are often cheaper on the internet, internet companies sell a wider collection of products and consumers can buy items whenever they like without leaving their homes. On the other hand, the current state of online shops still has two major disadvantages over ‘real’ shops: Products are often much harder to find than in traditional shops and there are no salesmen to advise the customers.

In this thesis, we address both these disadvantages. We introduce and evaluate several new user interfaces for online shops that are based on representing products in maps instead of lists to user, such that products are easier to find. In these maps similar products are located close to each other. To create these maps, statistical techniques such as multidimensional scaling are used. Furthermore, we combine these maps with recommender systems to address the second disadvantage and to help the user in finding the product best suiting her needs. Also, we introduce a recommender system that is able to explain the recommendations it gives to users. We think that the methods discussed in this thesis can form a basis for new promising online shopping interfaces both in research as in practice.

More information
Pictures of the defense
Full text of the dissertation