Selection Interface for Promoting User Selection Diversity by Presenting Positive/Negative Review Text and Video to Evoke Product Impression and User Emotion

Abstract

In recent years, unintentional bias in user selection has hindered the growth of information device interfaces and algorithms. To address this problem, it is essential to clarify the factors that influence a user’s selection bias and to design methods that diversify the user selection without bias. This study focused on the positivity and negativity of reviews and videos as factors that influence a user’s selection bias and investigated whether viewing them increases or decreases a user’s selection diversity. Based on the results, we aimed to show effective methods for improving a user’s selection diversity by evoking a user’s product impression through a review presentation and by evoking a user’s emotion through a video presentation. This study drew inspiration from the broaden-and-build theory, which suggests that exposure to positive or negative information can impact an individual’s selection diversity. In this study, we implemented a smartphone application for online product purchase for an experimental task in which individuals repeatedly selected one of five different drinks. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of reviews and videos on user selection. Experiment 1 showed that viewing positive reviews promoted diversity in a user selection and that both positive and negative reviews promoted brand switching (i.e., selecting different products in a consecutive selection). Experiment 2 indicated that watching a negative video potentially decreased a user’s selection diversity. Our study is helpful for understanding the effect of viewing reviews and videos on user selection and for designing interfaces that promote diverse user selection.