ARShopping: In-Store Shopping Decision Support Through Augmented Reality and Immersive Visualization

Online shopping gives customers boundless options to choose from, backed by extensive product details and customer reviews, all from the comfort of home; yet, no amount of detailed, online information can outweigh the instant gratification and hands-on understanding of a product that is provided by physical stores. However, making purchasing decisions in physical stores can be challenging due to a large number of similar alternatives and limited accessibility of the relevant product information (e.g., features, ratings, and reviews). In this work, we present ARShopping: a web-based prototype to visually communicate detailed product information from an online setting on portable smart devices (e.g., phones, tablets, glasses), within the physical space at the point of purchase. This prototype uses augmented reality (AR) to identify products and display detailed information to help consumers make purchasing decisions that fulfill their needs while decreasing the decision-making time. In particular, we use a data fusion algorithm to improve the precision of the product detection; we then integrate AR visualizations into the scene to facilitate comparisons across multiple products and features. We designed our prototype based on interviews with 14 participants to better understand the utility and ease of use of the prototype.Comment: VIS 2022 Short Paper; 5 page

An environment for protecting the privacy of e-shoppers

Privacy, an everyday topic with weekly media coverage of loss of personal records, faces its bigger risk during the uncontrolled, involuntary or inadvertent disclosure and collection of personal and sensitive information. Preserving one's privacy while e-shopping, especially when personalisation is involved, is a big challenge. Current initiatives only offer customers opt-out options. This research proposes a `privacy-preserved' shopping environment (PPSE) which empowers customers to disclose information safely by facilitating a personalised e- shopping experience that protects their privacy. Evaluation delivered positive results which suggest that such a product would indeed have a market in a world where customers are increasingly concerned about their privacy

Iterative Design and Prototyping of Computer Vision Mediated Remote Sighted Assistance

Remote sighted assistance (RSA) is an emerging navigational aid for people with visual impairments (PVI). Using scenario-based design to illustrate our ideas, we developed a prototype showcasing potential applications for computer vision to support RSA interactions. We reviewed the prototype demonstrating real-world navigation scenarios with an RSA expert, and then iteratively refined the prototype based on feedback. We reviewed the refined prototype with 12 RSA professionals to evaluate the desirability and feasibility of the prototyped computer vision concepts. The RSA expert and professionals were engaged by, and reacted insightfully and constructively to the proposed design ideas. We discuss what we learned about key resources, goals, and challenges of the RSA prosthetic practice through our iterative prototype review, as well as implications for the design of RSA systems and the integration of computer vision technologies into RSA

Digitalization of Retail Stores using Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons

This thesis explores the domains of retail stores and the Internet of Things, with a focus on Bluetooth Low Energy beacons. It investigates how one can use the technology to improve physical stores, for the benefit of both the store and the customers. It does this by going through literature and information from academia and the relevant industry. Additionally, an interview with an expert in the retail domain is conducted, and a survey consisting of a series of interviews and questionnaire with what can be considered experts in the IT domain. A prototype app called Stass is developed, the app demonstrates some of the usages of the technology and is also used for evaluating the performance of the beacons.Masteroppgave i informasjonsvitenskapINFO39

Master of Science

thesisThe thesis work developed and validated a system for scoring the quality of household grocery purchases, the Grocery Purchase Quality Index-2016 (GPQI-2016). A grocery sales data set (2012-13) without individual household shopper attributes was provided by a national grocery chain, and a sample of 4,000 households in each of four geographic locations was drawn. The 1,887 categories, known as "subcommodities," in the database were classified into the 29 food categories of the US Department of Agriculture's Food Plan market baskets. A standardized expenditure share for each category was calculated. Quality of food purchases was evaluated by comparing the observed to the standardized USDA expenditure share for each category and then grouping the categories into 11 components, based on the Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010). Processed meat expenditures were also assessed. Households that never purchased tobacco (n=12,460) had higher (6%) median total quality scores (30.7 of a possible 75 points) than those who did purchase tobacco (n=3,540, median score 26.3, p<0.01), as well as higher scores for each of the 11 components (p<0.01). Tobacco users typically have poorer diets than nonusers; therefore, construct validity of the GPQI-2016 in assessing grocery food purchases was established. The scoring design was further applied to evaluate food purchases from another data set, the USDA's 2012 Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS), and to conduct a correlation analysis with results using the HEI-2010 reference standard. A discussion of consumer health informatics application use cases concludes the thesis

Food Purchasing Behavior: Choice, Change, Challenge

abstract: This study was designed to influence consumer habits, specifically those relating to purchases of fruits, vegetables, and junk food. Previous studies have clearly shown the ineffectiveness of simply describing the health benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables (F/V). In contrast, this study aimed to change the result by changing the message: providing participants with insight into the hidden agendas of food companies and grocery stores, provide useful tips on how to include children when selecting F/V, and emphasizing the importance of parental modeling in regard to food purchases. Participants of this study were separated into two groups, the tour group and the education group. The tour group was guided through a grocery store where they learned about sales tactics and manipulations used by grocery stores and food companies to influence purchases. Education group participants were provided with an education session focusing on USDA and FDA handouts displaying current educational suggestions for increasing F/V consumption. Grocery store receipts were collected and analyzed to track the progress of both groups. The goal of the study was to identify a method of informing consumers that will produce a significant change in behavior. Increasing F/V consumption, even in relatively small amounts, would be an important step forward in improving the diet and overall health of Americans. This study was the first of its kind to measure purchasing patterns objectively (through analysis of purchase receipts, rather than personal opinion/evaluation surveys) and in a wide-scope retail environment that includes all grocery store purchases by participants. Significant increases or decreases in the amount of money spent on F/V, or the amount (pounds) of F/V purchased were not seen, however a small correlation (r = 0.133) exists when comparing the weight of F/V purchased pre/post intervention. Data from Food Frequency Questionnaires shows participants consuming significantly higher amounts of F/V post intervention (p=0.043). The tour group and education group experienced an average increase of 0.7 servings per day. Future interventions might benefit by extending their scope to include cooking demonstrations, in-home interventions, and education on healthy eating outside of the home.Dissertation/ThesisM.S. Nutrition 201

Measuring the Impacts of Smart Retailing Technologies Pilot Implementation – Proposal Framework

Smart retailing technologies are transforming retailers’ operations, consumer shopping experiences, and perceptions about retailers. These technologies are becoming increasingly numerous and may have different interfaces and ways of implementation. Based on the literature review, this study develops a framework to measure the impacts of implementing non-store-based and store-based smart retailing technology pilot projects, with appropriate metrics based on brand leadership, market performance and word-of-mouth. The proposed method is based on a survey distributed to a sample of customers and control groups, using an experimental Latin square design that controls the effects of extraneous variables. With this methodology, different interfaces can be evaluated in the non-store-based pilot projects, and different locations in the store-based pilot projects implementation, controlling extraneous variables such as seasonality, customer profiles and store-specific characteristics. Finally, the academic and managerial contributions to retailers, consumers and technology companies are highlighted, as well as limitations and avenues for future research

Designing to assist older adults’ navigation in e-commerce websites

The growth of the older population has drawn attention and interest in investigating approaches to help older people to live independently for longer, including the use of Web technology. For example, with online shopping, older consumers will no longer need to carry heavy shopping loads as the goods purchased can be delivered to the house. However, the usage of online shopping among older adults is still low. Furthermore, it has been reported that older adults often experience disorientation while navigating websites. This low usage of online shopping and also disorientation motivates this research. To gain a better understanding on how older adults navigate on e-commerce website and challenges experienced, an observation on older adults’ navigation with an online grocery shopping site was conducted. The study found that technological experience was helpful in easing web navigation. Inexperienced participants were found to face more difficulties while navigating the website than the experienced users, and main difficulties included identifying the ‘add to cart’ button, finding items in menu lists, finding the main menu, and changing the website’s default shopping settings. The difficulties were manifested as complex navigation paths and long task completion times. As difficulty in identifying the ‘add to cart’ button was observed frequently, ‘add to cart’ buttons were investigated further. An evaluation of the ‘add to cart’ button designs conventions on 51 websites was conducted to assess existing button designs against design guidelines for older users. This review highlighted the potential areas for improvement with regard to design for the older users, including the use of colour, focus indicators, contrast ratio and font size. A co-design study was conducted to understand how older users would design e-commerce web pages. Several objects were selected frequently by the older adults for inclusion in the e-commerce websites, that is, product images, price, and an ‘add to cart’ button. Some other objects were selected for inclusion depending on what type of website it was. For example, quantity selection was selected for cheap, multiple purchase items (e.g. groceries), whereas descriptions, reviews and shipping/return information was deemed important to the older adults for expensive, single-item purchases (e.g. assistive technology). The study also investigated older adults’ designs in terms of physical placement of the ‘add to cart’ button, and their designs, the button was most often placed close to the quantity selection and/or the price. The outcomes from these three studies provided design input for the prototype developed in the fourth study. In this fourth study, a ‘senior friendly’ and a ‘senior unfriendly’ design were compared. The two websites were developed and tested with two tasks, that is, a navigation task and shopping. Participants compared the two websites and answered questions pertaining to ease of performing the tasks. This study provides empirical evidence of the benefits on the users’ performance from the use of ‘senior-friendly’ design. The outcomes of this research have contributed to the existing knowledge of what designs could help older users’ navigation. The data provide support for new recommendations that an object that is important and frequently accessed (e.g. main menu) should always be visible to users rather than disappearing when scrolling down the page or appearing only when the cursor is in a particular position, and ‘buy boxes’ on e-commerce websites should be included in order to make important objects such as ‘add to cart’ buttons stand out

Supporting ‘Good Habits’ through User-Led Design of Food Safety Applications – Findings from a Survey of Red Meat Consumers

Mitigating consumer health risks and reducing food wastage has stimulated research into mechanisms for improving consumers’ food safety knowledge and food management practice. Many studies report success, but differences in methodology and in the type and range of foods and consumers involved has made comparison and transferability of results challenging. While most studies advocate for the importance of information in consumer education, few provide detailed insight into what ‘good’ information means. Determining appropriate content, formats, and methods of delivery for different types of consumers as well as evaluating how different choices impact on consumers’ food safety knowledge and behaviour remains unclear. Within a larger research project on enhancing provenance, stability and traceability of red meat value chains, this paper presents findings from a survey of Australian red meat consumers (n=217). It identifies consumers’ food safety issues and reveals information and communication preferences that may support good safety habits with food

Inclusive beauty: how buying and using cosmetics can be made more accessible for the visually impaired (VI) and blind consumer

Historically, assistive technologies for visually impaired and blind consumers evolved around aiding users in navigation, online content accessibility, learning, object and text recognition, and social interactions. There is no specific work done on technologies assisting these consumers with the use of cosmetics and engaging in self-grooming activities, whist such tasks are common and expected in the context of social and professional environments. This paper consists of two parts. The first one is a review of the assistive technologies relevant to shopping for cosmetics, as well as of the applications and systems which enable the choice of products, including some specifically developed for cosmetic purposes in line with the drive for personalised cosmetics. The second part reports the outcomes of a survey exploring the shopping and product usage of cosmetics by VI and blind individuals, including some qualitative data. The literature review identified a growing field of research and development of assistive technologies supporting shopping tasks and accessing product information. For example, conversion of text and visuals into auditory cues (verbal or other sounds) has been commonly used by VI and blind consumers. A small number of organisations/apps were found which provide advice, tutorials or direct assistance with cosmetics use and makeup application in particular. However, there were no reports of products and services within the remits of the cosmetic industry designed to assist the VI and blind users other than one brand adding Braille to product packaging. A range of technologies aimed at providing personalised cosmetic product choice were identified, however only one app was focused on helping such consumers with lipstick application. The survey showed that the VI and blind consumers used a variety of makeup products for reasons such as feeling good, looking professional, and simply because this is what sighted people do. Their choice of products was mostly driven by ease of use and brand familiarity, but sensory characteristics were also referred to. As lipstick was the most commonly used product, the colour was also an important choice factor. Shopping and finding the right product in store were considered easier than shopping online. The combination of primary and secondary data suggests that the use of cosmetics amongst VI and blind consumers could be encouraged in many ways: by improving the accessibility of product information – in store and online; by the design of accessible systems and applications which facilitate reliable product choice (colour and other desirable performance attributes); by offering access to affordable personalised products