The impact of user perceptions of AR on purchase intention of location-based AR navigation systems
Introduction
Augmented reality (AR) refers to technologies that enhance the user's sense of reality through the coexistence of digital and real environments (Azuma et al., 2001), whilst virtual reality (VR) refers to a computer-simulated environment with and within which people interact (Diemer, Alpers, Peperkorn, Shiban, & Mü;hlberger, 2015; Schuemie et al., 2001). Interest in the applicability of AR and AR-enhanced experiences has been significantly increasing in recent years especially in the context of learning by demonstration. With the stabilization of AR technology, it has become useful in the contexts of education and training service development. For example, it serves as a tool for schools to improve their gamification training programs (González et al., 2016) and in educational settings, the most reported advantage is that it promotes enhanced learning achievement (Akçayir and Akçayir, 2017).
With the increase in its applicability, research on AR has also increased. For instance, studies on topics such as technological development (Höllerer and Feiner, 2004; Van Krevelen and Poelman, 2010; Carmigniani et al., 2011), applicability in educational settings (Kaufmann, 2003; Wu et al., 2013; Cheng and Tsai, 2013), therapeutic effects (Hoffman, 2004; Arvanitis et al., 2009; Chittaro et al., 2017), customer response in retailing (Fan et al., 2020; Park and Yoo, 2020), customer satisfaction and retention rates in museums and tourist venues (Jung et al., 2015; Jung & tom Dieck, 2017; Sylaiou et al., 2010; tom Dieck et al., 2018a, tom Dieck et al., 2018b) have been published. Most studies, however, provide limited information, as they focus more on the technological viability and applicability of AR rather than the user perceptions of AR.
AR provides increased visual, tactile, and perceptual sensory experiences (Mehmetoglu and Engen, 2011). The user perceptions of AR can be categorized as spatial ability (sensory domain) (Huisingh et al., 2016), sense of presence (feeling domain) (Cummings and Bailenson, 2016), and conceptual understanding (cognitive domain) (Geveke et al., 2016). Despite the potential of AR to provide a new and unique experience to users, to the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous studies have considered the impact of the user perceptions of AR technology on user satisfaction and purchase intention including in the context of location-based AR navigation systems. However, as new AR products become available in the consumer market, it is important to understand how user perceptions of AR can be optimized to enhance customer satisfaction and increase purchase intention of these products. In particular, this study aims to answer the following research question: “What influence does sense of presence, conceptual understanding, and spatial ability have on intention to purchase location-based AR navigation systems among drivers in Korea?”. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the antecedents (i.e., sense of presence, conceptual understanding, and spatial ability) of intention to purchase location-based AR navigation systems among drivers in Korea. Currently, there are limited AR navigation systems on the consumer market as further testing and research is required for confirm their safety. Due to this, the main limitation of this study is the limited ability to facilitate a real driving scenario, which was out of scope of the current research project. We herein identify factors that may affect user satisfaction and purchase intention with AR experiences. More specifically, we examine how and through which paths the user perceptions of AR technology (sense of presence, conceptual understanding, and spatial ability) influence users’ experience, subsequently influencing satisfaction and purchase intention during exposure to an AR-based demonstration.
The paper is structured as follows: section 2 reviews the concepts and related literature; section 3 introduces the research model and related hypotheses; section 4 presents the results; and section 5 concludes with a discussion of the limitations and implications of our findings. This study contributes new findings to the field of AR by identifying three antecedents (sense of presence, conceptual understanding, and spatial ability) that impact on drivers’ intention to purchase location-based AR navigation systems. This is the first study to investigate these specific factors and provide empirical evidence to support the outcome in this context.
Section snippets
Augmented reality and consumer behavior
Augmented reality (AR) offers firms new possibilities in delivering content to consumers (McLean and Wilson, 2019) by superimposing virtual 3D objects on the actual visible world that register and interact with virtual images in real time (Azuma et al., 2001). In the last decade, AR has seen a boom in commercial applications since smartphone and mobile devices have become ubiquitous as a means of searching for information (Loureiro et al., 2019). Consumers can have endless interaction with
Hypotheses
In this study, we propose a research model based on experience economy theory to investigate users' perceptions of AR and their effects on user satisfaction (see Fig. 2). Presence of feeling, conceptual understanding, and spatial ability are considered as the user perceptions of AR. Rather than focusing on the direct effects of these user perceptions on user satisfaction, the model focuses on the contribution of various experiential factors. This research enriches our understanding of how the
Study context
This study focuses on location-based AR navigation for driving experiences. Most drivers use navigation systems to help them while driving and it is expected that the use of navigation systems in Korea will increase in proportion to the increase in vehicle production in the future. Most information provided by navigation systems is represented on a map. AR navigation, on the other hand, combines the necessary information on a screen showing actual road surfaces, which is a more intuitive
Participant profiles
Table 1 shows the demographic characteristics of respondents. According to the responses to the questionnaire, 28.7% (n = 86) had experience using AR and 71.3% (n = 214) had no experience. There was an almost even distribution of male (51.3%) and female (48.7%) participants whom varied fairly evenly across the age categories. The majority of participants were employed (61%) followed by homemakers (16%), students (12%) and practitioners (11%).
Measurement of variables
For the measurement of variables in this study, a
General discussion
Although there are several papers on AR and experience economy theory (e.g. Lee, Jung, tom Dieck and Chung, 2019; Jung, tom Dieck, Lee and Chung, 2016; Manthiou et al., 2014), this is the first study to investigate the antecedents (i.e., sense of presence, conceptual understanding, and spatial ability) of intention to purchase location-based AR navigation systems among drivers. Therefore, this research provides valuable insight into our understanding of AR in this context while extending
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the Eminent Scholar Program at Kyung Hee University, South Korea in 2020.
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