Browsing by Subject "Augmented Reality"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Open Access
    A quantitative analysis of Augmented Reality visual merchandising on online purchase intention: A consumer neuroscience approach
    (2022) Abbott, Lara Elizabeth; Pillay, Pragasen; Rosenstein, David; Drummond, Mark
    The rapid evolution of e-commerce has led retailers to fixate on how to differentiate themselves and provide an enhanced and engaging experience for their customers. In this dynamic industry, emerging technologies and innovation have become crucial for maintaining a competitive advantage. The purpose of this study is to explore how newer methods of visual merchandising can influence consumer purchase intentions, paying particular attention to Augmented Reality (AR) and how its inclusion in the online shopping industry could mark a pivotal change. The study addresses present difficulties in online retail such as the lack of touch and feel aspect, customer uncertainty and cart abandonment. It is proposed herein that Augmented Reality as a visual merchandising technique will mitigate these difficulties and allow South African online retail to grow in accordance with global standards. Given the recent developments in online retail in South Africa due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is an opportune moment to investigate consumers and invest in meeting their ever-changing needs, enhancing their experiences, and formulating insight-driven digital marketing strategies. This paper serves to break new ground in nascent AR literature within the field of market research, and particularly in the South African and Neuroscience context. By examining the real-time Emotion and Attention of respondents using Neuroscience technology, this study provides a practical approach for marketing executives to optimize their customers' online experience and thus drive conversion rates. The objectivity of neuroscience methods presented more reliable, evidence-driven insights by accessing unconscious consumer responses that complement traditional measures. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), a robust and frequently used model for new technology adoption and the Model of Emotion Regulation were also used, providing the explicit measures for the study. Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Usefulness and Purchase Intention were all rated favorably, indicating a positive likelihood of AR adoption by the South African market. The positive feedback regarding Purchase Intention is also a significant finding given it has proven previously to be an indicator of actual buying behaviour. Higher levels of arousal in the AR group present a promising indication of the consumers' cognition of the product and ultimately its impact on the consumer decision making process. Therefore, this study suggests the incorporation of AR into marketing strategies to remain successful in a dynamic retail environment.
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    Open Access
    The Impact of an Augmented Reality Application on Learning Motivation of Students
    (2019-02-03) Khan, Tasneem; Johnston, Kevin; Ophoff, Jacques
    The research on augmented reality applications in education is still in an early stage, and there is a lack of research on the effects and implications of augmented reality in the field of education. The purpose of this research was to measure and understand the impact of an augmented reality mobile application on the learning motivation of undergraduate health science students at the University of Cape Town. We extend previous research that looked specifically at the impact of augmented reality technology on student learning motivation. The intrinsic motivation theory was used to explain motivation in the context of learning. The attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (ARCS) model guided the understanding of the impact of augmented reality on student motivation, and the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey was used to design the research instrument. The research examined the differences in student learning motivation before and after using the augmented reality mobile application. A total of 78 participants used the augmented reality mobile application and completed the preusage and postusage questionnaires. The results showed that using an augmented reality mobile application increased the learning motivation of students. The attention, satisfaction, and confidence factors of motivation were increased, and these results were found to be significant. Although the relevance factor showed a decrease it proved to be insignificant.
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    Open Access
    Mobile phone technology as an aid to contemporary transport questions in walkability, in the context of developing countries
    (2019) Chege, Wilberforce Wanjau; Zuidgeest, Marcus
    The emerging global middle class, which is expected to double by 2050 desires more walkable, liveable neighbourhoods, and as distances between work and other amenities increases, cities are becoming less monocentric and becoming more polycentric. African cities could be described as walking cities, based on the number of people that walk to their destinations as opposed to other means of mobility but are often not walkable. Walking is by far the most popular form of transportation in Africa’s rapidly urbanising cities, although it is not often by choice rather a necessity. Facilitating this primary mode, while curbing the growth of less sustainable mobility uses requires special attention for the safety and convenience of walking in view of a Global South context. In this regard, to further promote walking as a sustainable mobility option, there is a need to assess the current state of its supporting infrastructure and begin giving it higher priority, focus and emphasis. Mobile phones have emerged as a useful alternative tool to collect this data and audit the state of walkability in cities. They eliminate the inaccuracies and inefficiencies of human memories because smartphone sensors such as GPS provides information with accuracies within 5m, providing superior accuracy and precision compared to other traditional methods. The data is also spatial in nature, allowing for a range of possible applications and use cases. Traditional inventory approaches in walkability often only revealed the perceived walkability and accessibility for only a subset of journeys. Crowdsourcing the perceived walkability and accessibility of points of interest in African cities could address this, albeit aspects such as ease-of-use and road safety should also be considered. A tool that crowdsources individual pedestrian experiences; availability and state of pedestrian infrastructure and amenities, using state-of-the-art smartphone technology, would over time also result in complete surveys of the walking environment provided such a tool is popular and safe. This research will illustrate how mobile phone applications currently in the market can be improved to offer more functionality that factors in multiple sensory modalities for enhanced visual appeal, ease of use, and aesthetics. The overarching aim of this research is, therefore, to develop the framework for and test a pilot-version mobile phone-based data collection tool that incorporates emerging technologies in collecting data on walkability. This research project will assess the effectiveness of the mobile application and test the technical capabilities of the system to experience how it operates within an existing infrastructure. It will continue to investigate the use of mobile phone technology in the collection of user perceptions of walkability, and the limitations of current transportation-based mobile applications, with the aim of developing an application that is an improvement to current offerings in the market. The prototype application will be tested and later piloted in different locations around the globe. Past studies are primarily focused on the development of transport-based mobile phone applications with basic features and limited functionality. Although limited progress has been made in integrating emerging advanced technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Machine Learning (ML), Big Data analytics, amongst others into mobile phone applications; what is missing from these past examples is a comprehensive and structured application in the transportation sphere. In turn, the full research will offer a broader understanding of the iii information gathered from these smart devices, and how that large volume of varied data can be better and more quickly interpreted to discover trends, patterns, and aid in decision making and planning. This research project attempts to fill this gap and also bring new insights, thus promote the research field of transportation data collection audits, with particular emphasis on walkability audits. In this regard, this research seeks to provide insights into how such a tool could be applied in assessing and promoting walkability as a sustainable and equitable mobility option. In order to get policy-makers, analysts, and practitioners in urban transport planning and provision in cities to pay closer attention to making better, more walkable places, appealing to them from an efficiency and business perspective is vital. This crowdsourced data is of great interest to industry practitioners, local governments and research communities as Big Data, and to urban communities and civil society as an input in their advocacy activities. The general findings from the results of this research show clear evidence that transport-based mobile phone applications currently available in the market are increasingly getting outdated and are not keeping up with new and emerging technologies and innovations. It is also evident from the results that mobile smartphones have revolutionised the collection of transport-related information hence the need for new initiatives to help take advantage of this emerging opportunity. The implications of these findings are that more attention needs to be paid to this niche going forward. This research project recommends that more studies, particularly on what technologies and functionalities can realistically be incorporated into mobile phone applications in the near future be done as well as on improving the hardware specifications of mobile phone devices to facilitate and support these emerging technologies whilst keeping the cost of mobile devices as low as possible.