How Usability and User Experience Vary Among the Basic m-Commerce, AR and VR Based User Interfaces of Mobile Application for Online Shopping

Abstract

AbstractNow a days, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) based user interfaces allow the consumers to buy product over the internet using browser or mobile application. A limited number of mobile application use the AR, VR, or the both technologies simultaneously. Again, usability and user experience of using AR and VR based user interfaces to buy/sell product online were not well explored. Therefore, the objectives of this research are to design and develop a mobile application using the AR and VR technologies and to explore the usability and user experience of using the basic m-commerce, AR and VR based user interfaces of mobile application for shopping product (furniture) online. To attain these objectives, a mobile application was designed and developed for selling/buying product (furniture) online that includes the facilities of interacting with both AR and VR based user interfaces. The application provides the attractive features like viewing a specific product directly in user’s own space by augmenting the 3D model and allow users to design virtual room in their own preferable way by placing the selected furniture and other products in a VR environment. The developed system was evaluated with 60 participants through the System Usability Scale (SUS) method to explore how usability and user experience vary among different options (basic m-commerce system, AR, and VR based user interfaces) of the developed application. The study results showed that better user experience and usability were observed for AR based shopping followed by using the basic m-commerce feature. The VR showed less usability and user experiences since the users were not well familiar with the uses of VR and required much training to learn how to interact using VR in mobile application.KeywordsAugmented realityVirtual realitye-commercem-commerceMobile applicationUsabilityUser experienceSystem Usability Scale (SUS)