Do psychological traits influence the perceived usefulness of rule recommendations in configuration tasks?

In this paper, we describe an empirical evaluation of the user's perceived usefulness of recommendations for configuration tasks in a smart home scenario. Our results suggest that while overall recommendations help improve the performance in the task, the psychological traits of Self-efficacy and Need for Cognition play an important role in determining the perceived usefulness of the recommendations. These effects are somehow different from those reported in other studies where recommendations are provided for a choice task rather than a constructive task. Thus, our results offer evidence regarding the importance of incorporating the evaluation of personality traits into the design of configuration constructive tasks in order to make informed decisions on whether and how to provide users with recommendations. Additionally, they show that it is crucial to take into account the nature of the task and, where possible, individual competencies.