2023
Authors
Goncalves , G; Meirinhos, G; Melo, M; Bessa, M;
Publication
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Abstract
E-commerce is a field that changed how consumers purchase and interact with products. Although, inherent limitations such as the difficulty of testing the products first-hand before a purchase can compromise consumers' trust in online purchases. Virtual Reality (VR) has been investigated as a tool to solve limitations in several fields and how we can harness its potential to improve the overall user experience. This study analysed how immersive VR (IVR) could solve these limitations by allowing consumers to test products beforehand. We have studied how the Novelty Factor (evaluated by the users' past VR experience) and Immersive Tendencies correlate with the users' Purchase Intention and Memory (how well they remember the product's characteristics). We have analysed a sample of 38 participants (21 males) from 18 to 28 years old. Participants experienced a refrigerator with an interactive touchscreen in an IVR setup and were guided through its functionalities. Results indicated that memory of the product's characteristics was positively correlated with how recently they experienced VR. No correlations were found in the female sample. A negative correlation between Purchase Intention and Memory of the product's characteristics was found in the male sample. We concluded that IVR applications could become helpful for both consumers and online shops in an e-commerce context regardless of the Novelty Factor and Immersive Tendencies of consumers. However, differences between genders should be further investigated.
2023
Authors
Monteiro, P; Gonçalves, G; Peixoto, B; Melo, M; Bessa, M;
Publication
IEEE ACCESS
Abstract
Currently, it is standard to use tracked handheld controllers for interaction in immersive virtual reality (VR). However, since VR interactions are becoming more natural with hand tracking, it is important to provide hands-free alternatives for selection and system control tasks. As such, this study aims to provide an exploratory evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of commonly used hands-free interfaces in selection and system control tasks. Nine interaction methods were evaluated while performing a Fitts' law task with nine advanced users of VR in a within-subject experiment. We evaluated handheld controllers as a baseline, against head gaze, eye gaze, and voice commands for pointing at the targets, and dwell time and voice commands to confirm selections. We found that using eye gaze with a 500 ms dwell time proved to be the hand-free method with the highest performance, matching the handheld controllers and being preferred by users. The evaluation also showed that using a multimodal approach to selection, especially using the voice, decreases performance, but increases effectiveness. Moreover, we verified that Fitts' law can be applied to hands-free methods, but its usage is limited when the methods have very short travel times. We then suggest selections per minute as a more robust comparative performance metric. Further studies should expand the audience and interaction tasks and focus on the confirmatory method of selection.
2010
Authors
Cunha, CR; Peres, E; Morais, R; Bessa, M; Reis, MC;
Publication
J. Theor. Appl. Electron. Commer. Res.
Abstract
Stating that information and services are ubiquitous, means that they are available anywhere, anytime. The development of mobile-devices with wireless network-access capabilities, together with the decrease in network-traffic costs and the proliferation of free wireless hotspots, makes the use of mobile-devices, as Internet access tools, increasingly common and attractive. With novel forms of presenting information and to provide new ways to interact with consumers, new business strategies can be boosted, in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and m-commerce. This paper describes a different approach to the relationship between customers and business-providers, based on contextualization mechanisms located in commercial products, which in turn acts as a gateway to static tag-embedded information as well as web-based information and services. A wine integrated management system, called SIGPV, is presented as a proof-of-concept, enumerating some of possible major business and CRM benefits. © 2010 Universidad de Talca - Chile.
2011
Authors
Alexandre, G; Adao, T; Goncalves, M; Magalhaes, L; Bessa, M; Peres, E; Varajao, J;
Publication
ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS, PT 2
Abstract
Advertisers struggle to reach effectively and efficiently to their customers, continuously seeking to influence them and simultaneously reduce the overall publicity costs. Business areas like the mobile devices industry, together with wireless technologies and interactive environments, bring an huge opportunity for marketing purposes. supporting the chance to turn advertising into a convenient and easily accessible source of information by letting marketers communicate with costumers in a more direct, personal and contextualized way. This paper presents some foundations for the development of a system that will allow context-aware personalized profile-based advertising delivery, by using Bluetooth technology to identify and communicate with customers in a given geographic area, through their mobile devices.
2011
Authors
Melo, M; Bessa, M; Rocha, T; Sousa, J; Peres, E; Varajao, J; Magalhaes, L;
Publication
ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS, PT 2
Abstract
With Virtual Reality (VR) systems it is possible to visualize three-dimensional environments with a high level of detail and visual fidelity. The users can manipulate and interact with those virtual environments in an intuitive way, close to reality. The VR systems enable the access to digital services that can promote, amongst others, collaborative work, data sharing or e-commerce. In this paper, we present a multidisciplinary solution that can offer added value to users through a collaborative environment with an intuitive interface. This environment will use geo-referenced databases to replicate urban environments and represent real world problems in a virtual way, making possible a better and more flexible approach in order to solve them. It is also proposed an architecture and some digital services are illustrated to show its potential.
2012
Authors
Magalhaes, L; Bessa, M; Urbano, C; Melo, M; Peres, E; Chalmers, A;
Publication
OPTICS, PHOTONICS, AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR MULTIMEDIA APPLICATIONS II
Abstract
There is a vast body of literature concerning the capture, storing, transmission and display of High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. Nevertheless, there are few works that try to address the problem of getting HDR on mobile devices. Their hardware limitations, such as processing power, storage space, graphics capabilities and screen characteristics, transform that problem in a big challenge. However, since more and more HDR content is being produced and given that in a few years it can become a standard, it is necessary to provide the means to visualize HDR images and video on mobile devices. The main goal of this paper is to present a survey on HDR visualization approaches and techniques developed specifically for mobile devices. To understand what are the main challenges that need to be addressed in order to visualize HDR on mobile devices, an overview of their main characteristics is given. The very low dynamic range of most of mobile devices' displays implies that a tone mapping operator (TMO) must be applied in order to visualize the HDR content. The current status of the research on TMO will be presented and analyzed, a special attention will be given to the ones that were developed taking in account the limited characteristics of the mobile devices' displays. Another important issue is visualization quality assessment, meaning visualize HDR content without losing the main characteristics of the original HDR content. Thus, evaluation studies of HDR content visualization on mobile devices will be presented and their results analyzed.
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