Towards End-to-End Alignment of User Satisfaction via Questionnaire in Video Recommendation

TL;DR

This paper introduces EASQ, a novel framework for real-time alignment of video recommendation models with true user satisfaction using sparse questionnaire feedback, improving user satisfaction metrics and business outcomes.

Contribution

EASQ employs a multi-task architecture with LoRA modules and a DPO-based objective to effectively incorporate sparse satisfaction signals into online recommendation models.

Findings

EASQ improves user satisfaction metrics in offline and online tests.

EASQ achieves stable business gains in production deployment.

The framework effectively balances sparse questionnaire signals with dense behavioral data.

Abstract

Short-video recommender systems typically optimize ranking models using dense user behavioral signals, such as clicks and watch time. However, these signals are only indirect proxies of user satisfaction and often suffer from noise and bias. Recently, explicit satisfaction feedback collected through questionnaires has emerged as a high-quality direct alignment supervision, but is extremely sparse and easily overwhelmed by abundant behavioral data, making it difficult to incorporate into online recommendation models. To address these challenges, we propose a novel framework which is towards End-to-End Alignment of user Satisfaction via Questionaire, named EASQ, to enable real-time alignment of ranking models with true user satisfaction. Specifically, we first construct an independent parameter pathway for sparse questionnaire signals by combining a multi-task architecture and a lightweight LoRA module. The multi-task design separates sparse satisfaction supervision from dense behavioral signals, preventing the former from being overwhelmed. The LoRA module pre-inject these preferences in a parameter-isolated manner, ensuring stability in the backbone while optimizing user satisfaction. Furthermore, we employ a DPO-based optimization objective tailored for online learning, which aligns the main model outputs with sparse satisfaction signals in real time. This design enables end-to-end online learning, allowing the model to continuously adapt to new questionnaire feedback while maintaining the stability and effectiveness of the backbone. Extensive offline experiments and large-scale online A/B tests demonstrate that EASQ consistently improves user satisfaction metrics across multiple scenarios. EASQ has been successfully deployed in a production short-video recommendation system, delivering significant and stable business gains.