Augmented Reality E-Commerce Assistant System: Trying While Shopping

• Published in: 12th International Conference, HCI International 2007, Beijing, China, July 22-27, 2007 Vol. 4551; pp. 643 - 652
• Main Authors: Lu, Yuzhu, Smith, Shana
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Springer Berlin / Heidelberg 2007; Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Augmented Reality; Electronic Commerce; User Centered Design
• ISBN: 9783540731061; 3540731067
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-73107-8_72

Traditional electronic commerce (e-commerce) is limited, because it cannot provide enough direct information about products to online consumers. The technology presented in this paper shows how Augmented Reality (AR) can be used to help overcome the limitations and enhance e-commerce systems. An e-commerce assistant tool was developed, using user-centered design principles. The tool was developed as an Internet plugin, so it can be used on different kinds of computers and handheld devices. A usability experiment was conducted, to compare the developed AR e-commerce assistant tool with traditional e-commerce and Virtual Reality (VR) e-commerce systems. Results show that an AR e-commerce system can provide more direct information about products than traditional or VR e-commerce systems.