Other type of AR -> ANW

It is called Articulated Naturality Web.

Check this out:

Concept
Articulated Naturality spans a wide area of the virtuality continuum
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuality_Continuum) and brings together
many new emerging technologies to create a revolutionary user experience
of the real and digital world. It aims to be as intuitive as possible
for the user to get a natural experience of the digital world overlaid
on the real.

The evolution of technology has made a leap in human-machine and
human-human interaction possible. Humankind is ever-closer to realising
Human 2.0. In the Articulated Naturality Web organic human senses like
sight and hearing can become more than evolution designed them to be.
The power of the digital information becomes available where it’s needed
and presented in harmony with the environment through the overlay of
digital objects upon the real world.

The computing revolution forced people to interact with information in
an inorganic way so a person wanting to know where the nearest bank was
would have to go through several steps like searching the internet,
skimming through search results and entering location information before
finally getting the address of the nearest bank then they need to put
the information into their GPS navigation software a couple of years
ago. This was perceived to be too many steps and unintuitive. It misses
the potential of how information could be made available with the
advances in smartphones and GPS. The AN way would see the user click the
bank icon in the local search menu, an arrow appear in their field of
view and they be guided there directly.

The smartphone becomes the window to this world of information where
it’s meant to be and displayed in a way that makes intuitive sense to
the user. Augmented reality applications make this possible however many
applications still lack the naturality of interaction. ARticulated
Naturality is focused on bridging the gap and bringing the age of Human
2.0 closer.

Repairing a car with AR

Online questionnaire

Vul deze vragenlijst in om ons te helpen met het onderzoek naar winkelen!

Types of augmented reality

Augmented Reality, also called Virtual Reality, consists of adding a layer of information to reality. It generates a composite view for the user which is the combination of the real scene viewed by the user and the generated view generated by the computer that augments the scene with additional information. The goal of augmented reality is to enhance the user’s sensory perception of the virtual world they are seeing or interacting with.

Augmented Reality is used in the military, health care, entertainment, engineering design and other industries.

Basically, there are three types of augmented reality in current solutions:

1. headmounted displays
2. handheld displays
3. spatial displays

 

Inspirational TEDtalk about AR

Difference between online and offline shopping (2007)

In 2007 Philippe De Coninck has done some research towards the differences between online and offline shopping. Part of his research was a questionnaire with more than 200 participants. Below the benefits and disadvantages of both real stores and online stores are given, based on the mentioned research. This benefits and disadvantages will contribute to the questionnaire we will make for our research. Further in this blog a lot of other relevant results are explained.

Benefits of real stores
Stable brand identity
Customers database
Delivery sales
Real shopping experience

Disadvantages of real stores
High investment costs
Opening hours

Benefits of on-line stores
Advertisement on the whole Internet
Easier to innovate
Customers all over the world
Bigger range
Easier to expand
Easier to find / select products

Disadvantages of on-line stores
Harder to create a brand identity
No personal contact
No shopping experience
Delivery problems

Interesting quotes from research

In August 2011 Ghanshaam Sewnath finalized his thesis about “How online retailers can utilize social media to increase traffic and sales!” In this thesis Ghanshaam describes several important aspects about online shopping, which are quoted below:

Marketers seeking to use social media to increase traffic and sales to their website will first ask what technologies to implement. Often companies respond to this development by applying familiar Web 1.0 practices, such as advertisements and banners, in this new Web 2.0 environment. They will look at popular services such as Facebook and Twitter and being unfamiliar with these new technologies, use existing practices, such as advertisements, to reach the intended audience. Even though investing money in such a manner may deliver some result, the effect only last so long as money in being spent. Also, bringing your marketing message across in such a manner is becoming progressively ineffective as customers learn to systematically ignore banners and ads. The reason for this is that consumers are no longer looking at companies to satisfy their information needs regarding products and services.

Consumers are increasingly turning to various forms of social media to conduct information searches and make purchasing decisions. In these social media, friends, family and other buyers are influencing their purchase decisions. Research has even identified an increasing mistrust of traditional, mass-marketing tactics and a diminishing effect of mass media. Social media, on the other hand, is all about connecting with customers on a personal level.

Social media marketing allows companies to promote their product and services through online channels and reach large communities in a way that was not previously possible through traditional marketing channels. Doing so allows companies to connect with a large audience of consumers and influencers (Weinberg, 2009).

AR in shopping mall New Delhi

On wordpress someone else wrote an article about the way augmented reality can be used in retail marketing several years a go. An interesting part of this blog is quoted below:

I recently visited a shopping mall in Gurgaon, near New Delhi and I was amazed to see the use of digital signages, billboards and LCD screens all over the place. No doubt, these digital interactive kiosks and screens are innovatively leveraging the buzzwords of today’s marketing game mantra – “Be interactive and engage your customers”. And suddenly a popular quotation from my company’s President & Co-Founder Kanika Mathur flashed in my mind

“80% of purchase decisions are due to the influence at the point of sale”

In tune with what Seth said, I strongly feel that scope and horizon of augmented reality can be leveraged beyond the obvious platforms and can be easily extended to these retail outlets i.e. Point of Sale. An interesting and innovative campaign based on Augmented Reality can make a huge impact and easily influence the purchase decision of the consumer within no time.

read more of his blog!

Examples

Lego, what’s in the box?

Here is a video about Lego using Augmented Reality. This way the kids can see what they can build with the pieces in the box. It even animates to simulate the playing of the kids.

What can you do against agression?

This is a video of the reaction of people when seeing a big screen, where they could see themselves. The added layer on the screen confronts them with a situation with agression.

What box do I need?

This company takes a great use of Augmented Reality to compare the size of a box with the size of the thing you want to send. Now you can immediately see whether it will fit or not. It saves a lot of time measuring!

Rayban virtual mirror?

Rayban uses Augmented Reality to let the customers try on different sunglasses and look how they fit you.

Augmented Reality in Retail

That’s what we are going to speak about the next few months. On this blog you will see the progress of doing research on Augmented Reality in Retail.

Aim:

The aim of this research is to develop insights in the relationship between the customer experience in fashion shops and augmented reality.

Goal:

The goal of this research project is to find solutions to link offline and online shopping together using augmented reality.

Research question: How can augmented reality be used within the fashion industry to link offline and online shopping together?

Sub questions:

• What are the benefits of the online and offline markets, and how can those benefits be combined?
• How can augmented reality influence the shopping behaviour?
• Which kinds of augmented reality are suitable for the fashion industry?

Answering the above mentioned research questions will enable us to come up with solutions to enlarge the sales via combining the online and offline benefits.

We would love to hear your opinions about it, so leave a comment!