Enriching Recommender Systems Results with Data about Sustainability and Ethical Standards of Brands

In recommender systems research, not only user preferences but also the sustainability and ethical standards of the services underlying item fruition should be considered to promote virtuous selection decisions. We analyze user interfaces that guide item comparison taking these evaluation criteria into account and we test a synchronized multi-list aimed at raising users' awareness about items by enabling them to (i) sort items according to different evaluation criteria, and (ii) simultaneously view the overall evaluation of an item and its ranking in each criterion. A user study in the fashion domain has shown that the presentation of data about environmental sustainability and ethical standards induces virtuous selection behavior and that participants are more confident in their selections when using our synchronized multi-list user interface than with single-lists.