Explaining User Models with Different Levels of Detail for Transparent Recommendation: A User Study

In this paper, we shed light on explaining user models for transparent recommendation while considering user personal characteristics. To this end, we developed a transparent Recommendation and Interest Modeling Application (RIMA) that provides interactive, layered explanations of the user model with three levels of detail (basic, intermediate, advanced) to meet the demands of different types of end-users. We conducted a within-subject study (N=31) to investigate the relationship between personal characteristics and the explanation level of detail, and the effects of these two variables on the perception of the explainable recommender system with regard to different explanation goals. Based on the study results, we provided some suggestions to support the effective design of user model explanations for transparent recommendation.