GR/AP/BT User Interaction with Responsible Recommender Systems

Recommender systems recommend movies, restaurants, or other items to an active user based on information about users and items. Research in this area not only has to consider the underlying algorithms, but also how users interact with the systems. Delivering accurate and timely information is particularly valuable in complex scenarios such as travel and tourism. A current research focus is to investigate responsible recommender systems, for example, systems contributing to the UN Sustainability Development Goals (http://sdgs.un.org/goals).

We offer several topics as Guided Research in the Informatics (or related) Master’s program (IN2169), Application Project in the Master Data Engineering and Analytics program (IN2328) or Bachelor's Thesis Informatics (or related program) in the research area of human-centered interactive recommender systems. The actual topic can be discussed and will be specific, you are welcome to propose own ideas; options include:

• Adapting heuristic evaluation methods for early-stage recommender systems user interfaces
• Comparing different methods for preference elicitation and user feedback on recommended items
• Investigating the trade-off between controllability, automation, and cognitive load
• Communicating and explaining trade-offs with regard to multi-stakeholder fairness in recommender systems
• Interactive recommender systems for supporting sustainability development goals
• Selective sharing of user profile information to increase privacy
• User interaction with agentic recommender systems based on LLMs

The proposed course of action is as follows:

• Overview of the state-of-the-art, both in existing applications and also research literature
• Designing a solution, which can be very focused but should include some novel aspect(s)
• Implementing a prototype allowing test users to interact with the system and/or analyzing the algorithm's effectiveness
• Conducting a user-centered evaluation using appropriate methodology

The prototype application can be developed in any platform, e.g. Web-based or as a mobile application. Prerequisites are high motivation and good enough programming skills in the selected platform. Please send your application (brief CV, transcript of records and short motivation statement) to Wolfgang Wörndl (woerndl@in.tum.de) until September 28th, 2025 at the latest. The actual start of the project is flexible, but a GR or AP module has to be registered by the first week of a semester.