Interaction design for mobile product recommendation agents: Supporting users' decisions in retail stores

Mobile product recommendation agents (RAs) are software systems that operate on mobile handheld devices, using wireless Internet to support users' decisions en route, such as consumers' product choices in retail stores. As the demand for ubiquitous access to the web grows, potential benefits of mobile RAs have been recognized, albeit with little supporting empirical evidence. We investigate whether and how mobile RAs enhance users' decisions in retail stores by reducing the effort to make purchase decisions while augmenting the accuracy of the decisions. In addition, to identify potential design principles for mobile RAs, we compare and evaluate two interaction styles of mobile RAs: alternative-driven (RA-AL) versus attribute-driven (RA-AT) interactions. The results of a laboratory experiment conducted in a simulated store indicate that mobile RAs reduced users' perceived effort and increased accuracy of their decisions. Furthermore, RA-AL users made more accurate decisions than RA-AT users due to the RA-AL's interaction style, which was compatible with the way in which users processed information and made decisions in the store. These empirical results support the notion that mobile RAs should be designed to fit the user's task undertaken in the particular context.

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