Information need

The information need defines, in a structured manner, what the user is looking for. It comprises: * Constraints: they specify the slot-value pairs that the item of interest must satisfy. * Requests: they specify the slots for which the user wants information. * Target items: they represent the “ground truth” items that the user is interested in.

For example, the information need of a user looking for a comedy movie and its associated plot can be represented as follows:

{
    "constraints": {
        "genre": "comedy"
    },
    "requests": ["plot"],
    "target_items": ["Jump Street", "The Hangover"]
}

The information need is a core element of the user simulator as it is used to customize the generated responses and can serve as the reference for the evaluation of the conversational recommender system.