Full paper at : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-91716-0_1 While creating an optimal assortment of products, assortment planners need to take into account an important amount of information, which leads to a certain level of uncertainty. These trade-offs can diminish the quality of the assortment decisions made by the planners. To reduce their impact, assortment planners can now use artificial intelligence (AI) based recommendation agents (RAs) throughout their decision-making process, thus benefiting from their ability to process a large quantity of information to improve their decisions. However, research on user-RA shows that there are some challenges to their adoption. For instance, RA adoption depends on the users perceived credibility of its recommendations. Hence, this study investigates how the richness of the information provided by the RA and the necessary effort to access this information influences the assortment planners’ usage behavior (visual attention) and perceptions (credibility, satisfaction, performance, intention to adopt the RA). A within-subject lab experiment was conducted with twenty participants. The results show the importance of the RA’s recommendations that include easily accessible explanations of the variables included in their calculations on the usage behavior, perceptions, and decision quality of the assortment planners. These findings contribute to the HCI literature and the theory of RA adoption in B2B contexts by providing insights on features enhancing employee adoption.

1. In AI We Trust:
Characteristics Influencing
Assortment Planners’ Perceptions
of AI based recommendation Agents
HCI International 2018, Las Vegas (USA), July 15th
- 20th
Emilie Bigras
Marc-Antoine Jutras
Sylvain Sénécal, Ph.D.
Pierre-Majorique Léger, Ph.D.
Chrystel Black
Nicolas Robitaille
Karine Grande
Christian Hudon

2. Retail Assortment
decisions
▪▪ Creating an optimal assortment
of products
▪▪ Need to take into consideration an
important amount of information which
can negatively impact assortment
decision quality (Lurie, 2004)
▪▪ AI based recommender systems can
help assortment planners define
an optimal assortment more easily
(Dellaert and Häubl, 2012)

3. Recommendation
Agent (RA)
adoption and usage
User acceptance towards RAs
increases with perceived
transparency (Pu and Chen, 2006)

4. Research goal
Investigate how assortment
planners’ usage behavior and perceptions
of RAs are influenced by the way
recommendations are presented.

5. Experimental factors
Information richness
▪▪ Amount of information provided by the RA to
assist assortment planners throughout their
decision-making process
▪▪ Perceived transparency is recognized when the
logical reasoning behind the RA is explained
(Nilashi et al., 2016; Swearingen and Sinha,
2001)
Effort
▪▪ Number of steps required to get to the
information (e.g., number of screens)
▪▪ Gathering decision relevant information can
lead to information overload (Eppler and Mengis,
2004).

6. Hypotheses
H1
Assortment planners’ perceptions
toward the RA regarding credibi-
lity (H1a), satisfaction (H1b), and
performance (H1c) will be more
positive when the RA’s recom-
mendations include easily acces-
sible explanations.
H4
Assortment planners will have a
higher intention of adopting the
RA throughout their decision-
making process (i.e., RA used as
a delegated agent or as a deci-
sion aid) when the RA’s recom-
mendations include explanations.
H2
Assortment planners will consult
each recommendation of the RA
more frequently when the RA’s
recommendations are enhanced
with explanations that are diffi-
cult to access.
H5
When the RA’s recommendations
are complemented with easily
accessible explanations, assort-
ment planners will have a higher
performance (i.e., decision
quality).
H3
When the RA’s recommenda-
tions are explained, assortment
planners will allocate their visual
attention more towards the infor-
mation explaining these recom-
mendations at the beginning of
the decision-making process,
rather than at the end.

7. Current study
▪▪ Within-subject laboratory experiment -
20 subjects (Mage
= 26, SD = 3.92;
9 women)
▪▪ Two hours overall - $30 gift card
as a compensation

8. Experimental
Design Task 1 Task 2
Task 3
Richness
Effort
low
low
high
high
Image
Modal
Window
Product Score Name New Page

9. Task 1
Low Richness
and Low Effort
Image
Product Score Name

10. Task 2
high Richness
and Low Effort
Modal Window
Image
Product Score Name

11. Task 3 high Richness and high Effort
New Page
Image
Product Score Name

12. Experimental protocol
Reception
10 min 5 min 5 min 5 min 10 min
4 min 3 min 4 min 4 min 4 min4 min 4 min 4 min
10 min
InterviewQuestionnaire Calibration Scenario 1
Practice Task
Task 1
(Low
Richness,
Low Effort)
Task 2
(High
Richness,
Low Effort )
Task 3
High
Richness,
High Effort
Questionnaire Questionnaire Questionnaire Questionnaire
Instructions &
Demonstration
Counterbalanced
Scenario 2
10 min
Counterbalanced

13. Apparatus and measures
Psychometric measures (Self-report)
Credibility
(Ohanian, 1990)
▪▪ Trustworthiness
▪▪ Expertise
Satisfaction
(Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002)
▪▪ Highly satisfactory –
Highly satisfactory
▪▪ Very unpleasant –
Very pleasant
▪▪ Terrible – Delightful
Type of future usage
(Komiak and Benbasat, 2006)
▪▪ Delegated Agent
▪▪ Decision Aid
task
performance
▪▪ From 1 to 10

14. ▪▪ Performance score - Exclusively
for the first scenario
▪▪ Predetermined optimal assortments
were provided by JDA Labs
▪▪ Each final assortment of each participant
was compared to the predetermined
optimal assortment
Apparatus and Measures
Performance measures

15. í
P
Apparatus and Measures
Behavioral Measures
Visual attention
(Eye tracking – Smart Eye Pro)
▪▪ Number and duration
of ocular fixations

16. Results
Self-reported credibility,
satisfaction, and performance
▪▪ An RA providing rich information is
perceived as more credible (H1a)
and satisfactory (H1b)
▪▪ Users’ perceived performance is
negatively influenced by the effort
required to access information (H1c)
Hypothesis Result Estimate p-value 1
Credibility H1a
T2 > T1 0.7055 < .0001
T3 > T1 0.6139 < .0001
Satisfaction H1b
T2 > T1 0.6068 0.0054
T3 > T1 0.5103 0.0154
Performance H1c T2 > T3 0.4706 0.0948
1 Two-tailed level of significance(Bigras et al., 2018)
Participants’ Perceptions Results

17. results
Visual attention
▪▪ The RA’s recommendations are
consulted more frequently when they
are enhanced with difficult to access
explanations (H2)
(p = .0054 and p = .0225)
▪▪ When the RA provides additional
information, planners are consulting
this information more often at the
beginning of their decision-making
process (H3)
(p = .0137 and p = .1104)

18. results
RA adoption
The intention to adopt the RA
significantly increases with the
richness of information (H4)
Hypothesis Result Estimate p-value 1
The Intention to Adopt
the RA as a Delegated
Agent
H4
T2 > T1 0.8503 0.0003
T3 > T1 0.5647 0.016
The Intention to Adopt
the RA as a Decision Aid
T2 > T1 1.0705 0.0002
T3 > T1 0.9681 0.0005
1 Two-tailed level of significance
Participants’ Intention to Adopt the RA for Future Usage
(Bigras et al., 2018)

19. results
Actual
performance
The users actual performance
is significantly higher when the RA
provided rich information that was
easily accessible (H5)
Hypothesis Result Estimate p-value 1
Performance H5
T2 > T1 1.0500 0.0002
T2 > T3 0.2330 0.0002
1 Two-tailed level of significance
Participants’ Performance Results
(Bigras et al., 2018)

20. Discussion and concluding comments
ContributionS:
▪▪ Advancement of RA adoption in B2B contexts
▪▪ RA developers and UX designers
Limitations
▪▪ The low richness & high effort condition has
not been tested
▪▪ The results of this study can not be generalized
(two fictitious scenarios using clothes as
products)

21. Questions?