The impact of user perceptions of AR on purchase intention of location-based AR navigation systems

Highlights

• This study developed a theoretical framework including AR characteristics, experience, satisfaction and purchase intention.

• This study investigates the specific characteristics of AR-based driving experience from an experience economy viewpoint.

• Presence, conceptual understanding, and spatial ability were key antecedents of drivers' intention to purchase location-based AR navigation.

• Indirect AR experience through the use of video could increase purchase intention of actual location-based AR navigation.

Abstract

As new AR supported products such as location-based AR navigation systems become available in the consumer market, it is particularly important to understand how user perceptions of AR can be optimized to enhance customer satisfaction and increase purchase intention of these products. However, little research has addressed this gap in the literature so far. Therefore, this study developed a theoretical framework including user perceptions of AR, experience, satisfaction and purchase intention employing experience economy theory. This study's main theoretical contribution is that three user perceptions of AR – spatial ability (sensory domain), sense of presence (feeling domain), and conceptual understanding (cognitive domain) – were found to be key antecedents of consumers' intention to purchase location-based AR navigation systems through the mediation of educational, entertainment, aesthetic, and escape experience. The findings have important implications for future development of location-based AR 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.