3 ms·

Ask HN: Do you really watch “similar shows of X” or buy “similar items of X”?

1 points by gethooked 10y ago

I want to get the opinion of people who actually does and enlighten me on what are the cognitive signals these options have for the user. So do you? What's your take on this?

brownbat 10y ago
I don't think recommendations (from web elements or from friends) are ever a simple cause/effect relationship for me. I think it works like this: I treat recommendations like tally marks, once a show gets enough high quality tallies, I check it out. Maybe if I have conflicting information, I try to research more. If it's a novel recommendation engine, I might discount the value of its recommendations a lot, until it's proven to be really good. Same thing for friends. Those who share my taste or at least know my tastes really well, I calibrate up, based on the source. Regardless of the quality of the source, I usually need a few independent sources before I check something out. So a "similar to" from a good recommendation engine might tip the scales, or cause me to ask around, probably won't make me buy on its own. And if it's giving untrustworthy results, it gets discounted pretty fast.
- gethooked 10y ago
  thanks for the valuable insight :) I haven't looked at it this way.
cauterized 10y ago
Recommendation engines never seem to capture the dimensions/characteristics that I actually care about. They're useful for the exploratory phase of shopping when I'm trying to broaden the search and find all my options for, say, a cheap plastic cutlery set for kids. They're completely useless to me for suggesting media to consume, when the problem is narrowing down the near infinity of options to a manageable number. They tend to give unhelpful suggestions because they match items based on superficial qualities (genre, same supporting actor appeared in both, song is in a minor key) rather than the ones that matter to me (character development, pacing, arrangement).

3 ms·

Ask HN: Do you really watch “similar shows of X” or buy “similar items of X”?

1 points by gethooked 10y ago

I want to get the opinion of people who actually does and enlighten me on what are the cognitive signals these options have for the user. So do you? What's your take on this?

brownbat 10y ago
I don't think recommendations (from web elements or from friends) are ever a simple cause/effect relationship for me. I think it works like this: I treat recommendations like tally marks, once a show gets enough high quality tallies, I check it out. Maybe if I have conflicting information, I try to research more. If it's a novel recommendation engine, I might discount the value of its recommendations a lot, until it's proven to be really good. Same thing for friends. Those who share my taste or at least know my tastes really well, I calibrate up, based on the source. Regardless of the quality of the source, I usually need a few independent sources before I check something out. So a "similar to" from a good recommendation engine might tip the scales, or cause me to ask around, probably won't make me buy on its own. And if it's giving untrustworthy results, it gets discounted pretty fast.
- gethooked 10y ago
  thanks for the valuable insight :) I haven't looked at it this way.
cauterized 10y ago
Recommendation engines never seem to capture the dimensions/characteristics that I actually care about. They're useful for the exploratory phase of shopping when I'm trying to broaden the search and find all my options for, say, a cheap plastic cutlery set for kids. They're completely useless to me for suggesting media to consume, when the problem is narrowing down the near infinity of options to a manageable number. They tend to give unhelpful suggestions because they match items based on superficial qualities (genre, same supporting actor appeared in both, song is in a minor key) rather than the ones that matter to me (character development, pacing, arrangement).