Table 21. Summarizing the impacts of the two cases on the customer experience
• CE2 (CE2a and CE2b) – Personalization – the cases demonstrated that customers experienced a personalized interaction with the AR technology in their shopping journey. In the LP case, there was an additional intent to expand to other customer demographics using AR.
• CE5 (CE5a and CE5b) – Varied purposes – in the Saks case, AR was used in the waiting time or otherwise to provide for the enjoyment and hedonic experiences as part of the customers' journey. In contrast, in the LP case, varying entertainment experiences were offered to customers while
interacting on their mobile app.
Table 22. How the study experienced the AR solution design
There are similarities and distinctions in the two cases when their experiences are analyzed against the key organizational and customer level attributes.
4.4.2 Retailer attributes
For the user, a good experience consists of comfortable and pleasant use of the application and satisfying results. For the retailer, good customer experience means that the solution is easy to deploy and supports the business goals (Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, Oksman, and Vainio, 2007). In other words, the AR solution needs to be valuable to the user, in addition to being useful, usable, and desirable (Morville, 2004).
Saks is a high luxury apparel retailer on 5th Avenue, NYC, where the integrated smart glasses were used to enhance customer experience by providing its customers an option to self-select products, make a purchase decision, and determine delivery options. Saks wanted to provide competitive differentiation via immersive technologies and chose integrated smart glasses to understand the impacts. In the LP case, a high-end lamp manufacturer in Copenhagen, Denmark wanted to create competitive differentiation by providing its customers an option to make lamp choices from the comfort of their homes, determine the fit, and have the ability to purchase. The AR app was not integrated though it affected the shopping journey touchpoints. LP also wanted to create a new channel for interacting with customers directly, versus via retail stores.
The retailer attributes uncovered in the cases were store formats, type of store, and differentiation from competitors online or in-store, as summarized in Table 23.
AR Technology design attribute Saks Study LP Study
Display Smartglasses were clunky, not
built user friendly Mobile AR, easy to use Format
In-store with luxury retailer caused employees to be left out of the journey experience
Mobile, provided options to view lamps and how they may fit at home
Rendering
Felt loss of touch and feel due to quality of images and type of clothing
Quality of images in terms of height and size unclear
Standalone or Integrated
Key services integrated but was not frictionless, also created privacy concerns
Not integrated, retailers and customers needed integration to internal apps and social media given this is mobile
Table 23. Retailer attributes identified by the cases
4.4.3 Customer attributes
In the LP and Saks study, users were involved in testing visual perception issues and AR performance as well as in developing interaction techniques and user collaboration (Swan and Gabbard, 2005; Shen, Ong, and Nee, 2010).
The Saks case, via its integrated smart glasses at Saks 5th Avenue, showed that it was necessary to clarify customers' reasons for using the technology – enjoyment, aesthetics, or making a purchase. Given Saks is a luxury retailer, the customers came here typically to touch and feel the products and have interactions with the sales employees before making a purchase. Relevant factors included the customers' socio-demographics, brand, and price, and how customers wanted to engage with the smart glasses to make decisions. In the LP case, the mobile AR app was used from the comfort of their homes to understand how the lamps would fit in their homes and what intensity of light they provided. It catered to a specific socio-demographic group given the high-end brand of the lamps. In this case, the interviewed customers provided the insights that they did want to physically interact with the lamps before making a purchase given the price and brand; however, they were willing to experience this from home. They wanted to engage with the technology to understand options. Additionally, the customers were involved in what other customers thought about this technology, and they wanted to access social media from the app.
These cases provide context for the customer attributes that influence the perception of the experience.
The attributes identified in these cases from a customer perspective are summarized in Table 24.
Retailer Attributes Description Saks Study LP Study
Store Fronts Physical, mobile, online, multi,
or omni Physical in-store Mobile
Type Luxury, commodity Luxury apparel retailer Luxury lamp manufacturer
Competition Other similar options for customers
Competition with online shoppers as well as other luxury brand apparel retailers
Competiton with online shoppers as well as intermediaries and other lamp retailers
Table 24. Customer attributes identified by the cases
These attributes point to several reasons for why a design focus to develop AR solutions is needed. In AR, the development has been technology-driven, and only recently have there been more user-centric approaches (Swan and Gabbard, 2005; Dünser, Grasset, et al., 2007).
The purpose of using AR is to aid the user in a meaningful way. Users find it important that they know what is happening and feel that they control the system. Individuals have different preferences regarding how they wish to interact with the system. By providing the customers the level of information they need, they feel in control and will accept and adopt the technology.
The findings align with human-centered design principles, indicating that the result is generalizable for different AR applications (Chapter 5). Users have different expectations for a system; the first-timers or infrequent users prefer an easy-to-use and simple system; the professional user desires more features and interaction options. These kinds of expectations could be fulfilled by giving the user an option to select the way of interaction with the system via personalization or preferences (e.g., different user interface options). The system should support the purpose for which it is used. Users often have high expectations, and the number of desired features can be increased. Therefore, it is essential to identify "must-have features" and solve bottlenecks that would prevent or hinder the use of the AR solution.
4.4.4 Proposed conceptual model
The conceptual model that brings together the impacts of AR to the retailer and customer (from Chapter 3), the different attributes of the retailer and the customer (sections 4.4.1, 4.4.2, 4.4.3) as well as the impact mechanisms of AR on the retailer and customer (Tables 20 and 21) is depicted below (Figure 10).
Customer Attributes Description Saks Study LP Study
Goals Hedonic, Aesthetic or Utilitarian
The integrated smartglasses were used to enjoy and have fun as well as for making a purchasing decision
Understanding how the lamps would fit at home and trying options
Socio-demographics Age and gender and social status of customer
Luxury retailer where customers wanted to touch and feel in the physical store
LP was trying to use the app to attract a different demographic while customers wanted to touch and feel before making purchase
Attitude Price sensitivity,
Innovativeness, Involvement
Being high end, customers wanted to interact with store employees while they tried out the smartglasses for enjoyment and fun
The customers were willing to engage and try out options, wanted to do peer reviews as well as integration to social media
Figure 10. AR customer experience impact model
This model can be used to explain how AR impacts what retailers want to provide for customer
experience and consumers' perceptions of that experience, when a solution aimed at enriching the retail customer experience is deployed in different retail settings.
• Interactivity
• Quality of Augmentation
• Information level AR Characteristics
Consumer Customer Experience Perceptions
• Personal characteristics
• Customer Expectations Retailer Customer Experience Management
• Degree of Transformation
• Store set up
• Customer Journey
• Interactions
Retailer attributes
• Store Front
• Type
• Competition
Customer attributes
• Goals
• Socio-demographics
• Attitudes Technology Design attributes
• Display
• Format
• Rendering
• Integration
Impact Mechanisms
• CE1 –New channels
• CE2 –Personalization
• CE3 –Shopping journey events
• CE4 –New experience
• CE5 –Varied purposes Impact Mechanisms
• RE1 –Personal and contextual control
• RE2 –Digital interactions
• RE3 –Uncoupled digital touchpoints
• RE4–Redistribution of touchpoints
5 From Impact of AR as a Technology to AR Design using Human-Centered Approaches
The two cases analyzed in the AR impact study in Chapter 4 demonstrated AR's potential to enrich the retail customer experience. These cases highlighted, however, that a technology-oriented solution tends to create doubt in customers about using the AR experience to make a purchase decision. This doubt is due to multiple reasons, as determined in the previous chapter: their goals for the shopping experience – hedonic, enjoyment or utilitarian - their social status and the demographics they belong to, their
involvement and familiarity with innovative digital technologies, how sensitive they are to touch and feel, their interactions with store employees to talk about the products, privacy concerns, and their price-sensitivity and brand consciousness. The retailers engaged in customer experience management compete with other retailers in the same or different channels. They had various reasons to improve customer experience, including shifting the customer journey touchpoints using digital interactions and making these touchpoints non-linear; flexibility in how they stored products and used intermediaries; digital technologies that created a seamless customer experience.
The study showed that AR could play a critical role for both retailers and customers in enriching the retail experience in different retail settings. It made sense for customers to use AR actively to engage, experience, and make decisions (Bonetti et al., 2018). The solution should be meaningful and aligned to both the channel and the experience the retailers want to enrich. It should also make customers feel comfortable and purposeful in the way they use and experience the AR characteristics to add value in their shopping journey.