Introducing emotion-based personalisation to cancer websites: the impact of emotions on website personalisation and reuse intentions

Affective computing has received substantial attention in the recent time. However, its application to personalised online cancer services is understudied. Therefore, this research primarily explores the role of emotions in predicting the preference for personalisation features, and in forming behavioural intentions in cancer website usage. Secondly, this research seeks to understand whether users of cancer websites prefer to be offered emotion-based personalisation to other options – personalised or non-personalised. Emotion-based personalisation was implemented, in several phases, on the cancer website developed for the purpose of this research. A number of controlled experiments were carried out, in which users interacted with the cancer website and evaluated its personalisation features. The findings confirm that users more likely reuse a cancer website when they are satisfied with its personalisation services and find the website usable. Moreover, both negative emotions (e.g., sadness and fear) and positive ones (e.g., interest) encourage reuse intentions. Post-use negative emotions are primarily influenced by the website’s usability, while satisfaction with personalisation and usefulness of adaptive and adaptable services intensifies positive emotions. The website is perceived usable and it induces user satisfaction when its personalisation is considered useful. The findings imply that discrete emotions (of the nine basic emotions studied here) stimulate or discourage interaction with certain website features and content. Moreover, emotions experienced at the start of website use affect the perception about the usefulness of individual features available on the website. Generally, users experiencing positive emotions are eager to explore the website and be involved in the tailoring process. The effect of negative emotions is more difficult to generalise; it depends on the specific emotion and the personalisation feature in question. Overall, negative emotions are more likely to inhibit the use or perception of website features that require providing user personal information and interests, or entail extensive engagement from the user side. With regard to the second aim, this research suggests that emotion-based personalisation on a cancer website is preferred, however not significantly over generic personalisation or no personalisation at all. Nevertheless, the findings urged for further research. The survey and interview results consistently showed that: personalisation was perceived as useful, users were satisfied with it, that the website with emotion-based personalisation had the highest usability and most users prefer that type of personalisation. Moreover, repeat visitors and long-time cancer website users, who have been directly affected by cancer, decisively desired emotion-based personalisation. Overall, this research provides multiple theoretical and practical implications for personalisation adoption on cancer websites and stimulating reuse intentions. It recommends rules for adaptation and personalisation algorithms that incorporate user emotions. Moreover, it extends the existing theory and proposes a framework for understanding the emotion- and personalisation-related factors that influence intentions to revisit and reuse a personalised cancer website.