Personalization of analytics in the cloud Guidelines for personalizing the trial experience

Abstract

As a user, evaluating the personal utility of a service can be an overwhelming experience. With compex services, such as analytics software, this evaluation is especially daunting and time consuming. The aim of this thesis is to explore how personalization can be applied to make it easier for users to evaluate cloud-based analytics services during a free trial period. The project was carried out in collaboration with an industrial partner that develops a cloud-based analytics service, and this service was used as an example. Based on literature studies, a set of design guidelines for the application of personalization during a free trial. To evaluate the validity of the design guidelines, a prototype was designed and tested with A/B testing, heuristic evaluation and interviews. The results of the project indicate that personalization can be a promising concept to explore further for helping users be able to evaluate software products more effectively.