HCI in Business, Government and Organizations

While chatbots are an increasingly applied new channel for government services, voice-based citizen services and corresponding scientific knowledge on their requirements and design are still scarce. In order to pave the way for prospective conversational e-government services for voice assistants, we conducted five semi-structured expert interviews with government representatives experienced with e-government issues as well as engineering and design experts familiar with voice interfaces. We analyzed their responses on relevant topics such as accessibility, authentication, data protection and open government data and APIs, as well as collected their rich application ideas for a first generation of voice-based citizen services. Based on these results, we derived a set of implications and considerations for both providing the fundamentals as well as designing and implementing conversational e-government services.

Community-based open innovation platforms offer a promising approach to use the collective intelligence of target groups as a knowledge resource in product development processes. Their success depends on how such platforms can be designed in a user-centric way. This requires the consideration of factors such as communicative usability and sociability.In a study, the interaction between users when submitting ideas and commenting on ideas on an innovation platform was investigated. The analysis provides indications of usage strategies that encourage or discourage collaboration between users to further develop ideas. Guidelines for user interaction (code of conduct) and for the usable design of community-based innovation platforms are derived from the findings.

Increasing healthcare costs have motivated researchers to seek ways to more efficiently use medical resources. The aim of our study was to adopt the explanatory data-mining approach to identify characteristics of emergency department (ED) visits for ED management. To that end, we adopted a behavior-based decision tree (DT) induction method that considers medical diagnoses and individual patients’ information, i.e., 11 input variables, in order to analyze characteristics of patients’ visits to EDs and predict the length of the stays. We interpreted the results based on the communicability and consistency of the DT, represented as a behavior-based DT profile in order to increase its explanatory power. Among the major preliminary findings, the DT with International Classification of Diseases diagnosis codes achieved better clinical values for explaining the characteristics of patients’ visits. Our results can serve as a reference for ED personnel to examine overcrowding conditions as part of medical management.

In high-end hospitality industries such as airline lounges, high star hotels, and high-class restaurants, employee service skills play an important role as an element of the brand identity. However, it is very difficult to train an intermediate employee into an expert employee who can provide higher value services which exceed customers’ expectations. To hire and develop employees who embody the value of the brand, it is necessary to clearly communicate the value of the brand to their employees. In the video analysis domain, especially analyzing human behaviors, an important task is the understanding and representation of human activities such as conversation, physical actions and their connections on the time. This paper addresses the problem of massively annotating video contents such as multimedia training materials, which then can be processed by human-interaction training support systems (such as VR training systems) as resources for content generation. In this paper, we propose a POC (proof of concept) system of a service skill assessing platform, which is a knowledge graph (KG) of high-end service provision videos massively annotated with human interaction semantics.

The internet is awash with misinformation and disinformation. It is challenging to educate students in critical thinking and proper searching strategies. This study explored the relationship among epistemological beliefs, cognitive style, media multitasking, and information searching behaviors when students encounter contradictory scientific information. Pre-experimental design, interviews, questionnaires, observation, and search log analysis were adopted in this study. A total of 94 students were recruited to participant this study. The result has shown that science and technology (S&T) students did hold higher scientific literacy; however, there was no significant difference between S&T and non-S&T students regarding epistemological beliefs, cognitive style, and media multitasking. Nonetheless, this study found that there is significant relationship between media multitasking and cognitive style and between media multitasking and web navigation style. All students’ epistemological beliefs changed significantly from their pretest to posttest, indicating that students possess higher-order knowledge and thinking disposition.

Healthcare is increasingly incorporating industrial engineering tools into process improvement initiatives. This includes integrating technology into healthcare delivery, which is an appealing solution to “fix” problems. However, inserting technology without the proper systems integration can limit utility and success. Exposing industrial engineering students to these challenges is critical in training future healthcare leaders. This paper highlights the senior design capstone project for industrial engineering undergraduate students, which is a two-course sequence in the last year of their curriculum. Several of these projects focused on using technology to improve healthcare processes, providing hands-on experience with the challenges of integrating technology in real healthcare systems. These projects can be evaluated in terms of sociotechnical systems components, which considers the system dimensions of the person, task, technology, environment, and organization. Students found that patient-facing technology had more challenges from the other aspects of sociotechnical systems, which influenced the potential sustainability and success of the efforts. They gained an appreciation of the complexity of systems and how technology alone is insufficient to produce lasting, meaningful change. This experience served to prepare industrial engineering students for careers in healthcare and other highly complex industries.

Deception detection is a vital research problem studied by fields as diverse as psychology, forensic science, sociology. With cooperation with National Investigation Bureau, we have 496 transcript files, each of which contains a conversation of an interrogator and a subject of a real-world polygraph test during interrogation. Researchers have explored the possibility of natural language process techniques in gaming, news articles, interviews, and criminal narratives. In this paper, we explore the effect of the frontier natural language process technique to detect deceptiveness in these conversations. We regard this task as a binary classification problem. We utilize four different methods, inclusive of part-of-speech extraction, one-hot-encoding, means of embedding vectors, and BERT pre-trained model, to capture hidden information of transcript files into vectors. After that, we take these vectors as training samples of a hierarchy neural network, which is constructed by a fully-connected layer and/or an LSTM layer. After training, our system can take a transcript file as its input and classify whether the subject is deceptive or not. An F1 score 0.733 is achieved from our system.

The transformation to innovative and digital work environments is one major task for the working world. Actively shaping change processes in such a way that employees find the best possible working conditions offers many opportunities and potentials. On the one hand, it improves the working climate and employee loyalty. On the other hand, it creates optimal conditions for employees to optimally develop their potential. Requirements for employees and employers arise from changes due to the digital transformation of work. Both perspectives were considered in this paper. Focus is on the employees perspective and transformation in SMEs.On the basis of quantitative and qualitative surveys, fields of action in organizations were identified in this paper that are particularly relevant for the transformation process. An action transformation cycle has been developed, including fields of action in organizations from which specific measures for a transformation strategy can be inferred. An evaluation in an SME in the construction industry showed the transformation action cycle as useful tool for the support in planning transformation measures.

Business processes in public administration heavily rely on the exchange and transformation of information. The potential improvements through the introduction of supporting ICT are enormous. In this paper we report on several problems we found during the redesign of a business process for electronic invoices in a public administration and show how improving document handling as a part of proper information exchange could improve the whole process and highlight why it is a key challenge for such processes.

Teamwork has long been recognized of its fundamental importance to the operations and success of professional organizations. With the recent development in information and communication technology, the organization structure and operation frameworks for teamwork also evolve. The resultant emergence of “virtual team” has become a significant adaptation of teamwork in today’s digital global society. In this paper, we describe our research design for one of the first studies in the impacts of “virtual team” on several important factors of team dynamics and team leaderships, compared to those in traditional teamwork in physical proximity. We also present our preliminary results about the impacts of “virtual team” on team creativity and team member psychological safety.

Research on intuitive interaction in the academic community developed early in the millennium with the pioneering research of groups in Australia and Germany. Apple has produced a wide array of products and technologies which are widely proclaimed as “intuitive” leading to great commercial success. As far as can be determined Apple has never produced a white paper or any other document detailing the process or components of intuitive interaction. Apple, however, does provide Human Interface Guidelines (Guidelines) which frequently mention the “intuitive” as a desirable goal. This paper analyses the references to the “intuitive” and related key words in the Guidelines seeking to understand the context in which these references appear, and thereby identify elements that comprise “intuitive” interaction as outlined in the Guidelines. The results show broad correspondence to the aspects of intuitive interaction that has been developed by academic researchers triangulating the academic research performed. The analysis provides additional insights concerning the nature of intuitive interaction laying the basis for further research.

Queuing systems manage the order of customers waiting for their service encounter fairly and equitably and influence the perception of their experience in a physical retail store. In this field study, we investigate a self-service and a human-operated queuing system, both offering additional features, designed to offer a higher level of personalization and convenience for the customer’s waiting time. Our study shows that advanced queuing technologies in stores, with generally low customer frequency and short waiting times, show no statistically significant effect on a customer’s perception of the overall customer experience, satisfaction or intention to repurchase. However, customers were satisfied with the technologies and evaluated their queuing experience as effortless, easy and quick, which shows general support for those technologies. Beyond the statistical analysis, our mixed-method approach contributes to a broad understanding of advanced queuing technology for practitioners, retailers and developers of such systems.

Automotive service suppliers are keen to invent products that help to reduce particulate matter pollution substantial, but governance worldwide are not yet ready to introduce this retrofitting of helpful devices statutory. To develop a strategy how to introduce these devices to the market based on user needs is the objective of our research. The contribution of this paper is three-fold: we will provide an overview of the current options of particulate matter pollution solutions (I). This corpus is used to come to a more precise description of the specific needs and wishes of target groups (II). Finally, a representative empirical study via social media channels with German car owners will help to develop a strategy to introduce retrofit devices into the German market (III).

This paper is based on a study, which was conducted in the Multi-Channel Management Laboratory of Offenburg University in June 2019 using a convenience sample. The potential participants were recruited via the e-mail distribution list of the University as well as postings on the notice board. A total of 38 people took part in the study. The present study examines the effect of shelf placement of a wine rack with regard to block formation and vertical or horizontal structuring of these blocks. The results show that a wine rack that is arranged by product blocks according to wine type is perceived as significantly more orientation-friendly than a wine rack that is characterized by a manufacturer-oriented block formation. The perceived orientation friendliness influences the customers’ emotions experienced during the shopping process. Furthermore, the influence of these emotions on the satisfaction of the orientation friendliness was confirmed. It can be recommended to the stationary retail trade to structure wine shelves by placing products according to wine types within product blocks.

In field of service design, the research and application of service quality plays an important role in the development and competition of enterprises by establishing brand image and generating market effect. Therefore, experts in management and marketing have studied it and found that the quality of service in the industry has a great impact on consumer satisfaction, consumer experience and brand loyalty. Based on the research and development of the concept of service quality, PZB, a famous American marketing expert team, established SERVQUAL (SQ) model through the test of retail cases, and constantly revised and improved it, which was applied to multiple service industries. Through literature review, this paper analyzes the application of SERVQUAL model in China and abroad, mainly involving retail industry, medical service industry, e-commerce industry, tourism service industry and other service fields. The study found that SERVQUAL model plays a guiding role in evaluating the management of emerging enterprises, consumers’ preference for services, and resource allocation of service industries in developing countries. In addition, this paper compares the application of SERVQUAL (SQ) model and its derivative SERVPERF (SP) model in the service field, and finds that SP model is mainly a result-oriented quality of service study, while SERVQUAL model is mainly a result-oriented quality of service study based on process dynamic change. In the multi-field studies, it is found that SERVQUAL model, as a common basic model, combines the Fuzzy theory, Functional quality deployment and Kano model to comprehensively evaluate the service quality in the application field and provide decision support for enterprise development. Finally, this article discusses and summarizes the study of service quality, revises and improves the research model, and looks forward and proposes future service quality studies to provide more market and social value to service industry.

The world is faced with a growing problem of the overconsumption of fashion. The UK Parliament Environmental Audit Committee highlights that current model is untenable in the long term and that there is an urge for alternative fashion business models [1]. At the same time customers have vast ability to impact the fashion market. However, it is not an easy task to consume clothes in a sustainable way and it requires extra effort. This makes it crucial to recognize digital space and its potential to facilitate more Sustainable Fashion Consumption (SFC). Thus, with a growing usage of technology in people’s everyday lives the idea of gamified social application (GSA) to influence consumer behaviour is researched in the context of SFC.The literature review on sustainable fashion and gamification was undertaken to explore the subject and to develop appropriate research questions. Taking into consideration the complexity of SFC it was required to look into various academic areas such as psychology, sociology, macro marketing and economics, in order to discover ways to change fashion consumption through different game elements. The primary data is based on mixed research methods. It includes both qualitative and quantitative research. The prospective method for disclosing complexity of the subject was the comprehensive answers to qualitative interviews. The examination of the collected data suggests that well-designed GSA has the potential to foster SFC. In addition, gamification could be a useful tool in raising awareness through positive reinforcement about the consequences of fashion overconsumption.

The 311 system, a type of smart city initiative, has been adopted by local governments in the United States and has been concluded to increase citizen-initiated contact, instigate service coproduction, and improve citizen relationship management. Despite the importance of the 311 system in the service delivery process, few studies have examined the development and main features of a 311 system case study. Public managers could learn from the experience of other cities, as reported in a 311 system case study. San Francisco has one of the most successful 311 systems in the United States, and its development experience would be a learning case for numerous local governments. Hence, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of San Francisco’s 311 system, helping local public managers assess 311 system operation and providing evidence as to how these managers can develop an effective 311 system in their municipality.

With the acceleration of globalization, the acculturation issue of design is becoming an emerging challenge. At the same time, as one of the several design patterns in service design, which is becoming a mainstream in design society, has been adopted by more and more designers in design practice. Based on the output of a design workshop on acculturation issue of design, we presented the process of and learnings from participatory design aiming at helping foreigners living in China to use WeChat. To that end, we described the practice, problems and achievements, lessons learned, and outlook into the future for design practice using participatory design to address the acculturation issue.

The central theme of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is a modeling language with model consistency of systems structure and systems behavior. In this paper, we developed a Channel-Based Multi-Queue Structure-Behavior Coalescence Process Algebra (C-M-SBC-PA) as the modeling language for model singularity of the MBSE sharing economy service systems design. In C-M-SBC-PA, only a single diagram is used to specify the semantics of the design of the sharing economy service system. Overall, the model consistency will be fully guaranteed in the MBSE sharing economy service systems design when the C-M-SBC-PA method is adopted.

Entrusted by the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corporation (KRTC), this study attempts to devise a more effective methodology to forecast the passenger volume of the subway system in the city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan. We propose a local linear kernel model to incorporate different weights for each realized observations. It enables us to capture richer information and improve rate of accuracy. We compare different methodologies, for example, ARIMA, Best in-sample fit ARIMA, linear model, and their rolling versions with our proposed local linear kernel regression model by examining the in-sample and out-of-sample performances. Our results indicate that the proposed rolling local linear kernel regression model performs the best in forecasting the passenger volume in terms of smaller prediction errors in a wide range of measurements.

Explosive growing and ubiquitous accessing of digital music encourage the need for the content analysis of music objects. Music emotion, as a significant component of affective content, convoy high-level semantics of music objects. Provided with proper features, music emotion recognition could be formulated as a regression problem or a training/classification process, in which the emotions are represented as vectors in the dimensional space or categorical tags, respectively. In this paper, we would like to propose a machine learning-based approach to predict dimensional emotion of music objects without a sophisticated feature extraction process. Meanwhile, the exponential frequency resolution of Constant-Q Transform mirrors the human auditory system. First, we apply the Constant-Q Transform on music objects to derive the spectrogram, which is the corresponding visual representation of audio signals. Then, we make use of the convolutional neural network, which is commonly and successfully applied to analyze the visual image, on spectrogram for predicting music emotion. Experimental results show that our approach is promising and effective. By using the ten-fold cross-validation, our approach achieves the Top-3 accuracy as high as $$82.24\%$$ in the valence dimension and $$81.80\%$$ in the arousal dimension.

This study explores the emerging phenomenon of User Generated Content (UGC) in Business to Business (B2B) digital marketing. It offers deep insights into the challenges in UGC generation in B2B context which can help develop frameworks, to leverage UGC for marketing outcomes. Exploratory field research approach was adopted to examine the state of UGC and other similar practises in the B2B industry. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key B2B practitioners in Asia. Interview data was analyzed through thematic analysis to understand the challenges and possibilities for UGC in B2B, through the words and meanings attached to them by B2B practitioners. Iterations between data analysis and reference to relevant literature, was done to guide theory development and subsequent data collection. Based on this understanding a UGC Leverage Framework was developed, which is grounded in practice and relevant theories. This study has established a basic theoretical framework about the challenges for UGC generation in B2B industry. As this is the first research study to explore UGC in B2B contexts, it’s findings fill a gap in current literature and offer suggestions for further research. The outcome of this study gives B2B marketing practitioners and researchers, a sound understanding of the challenges involved. Thus helping them find ways to leverage UGC to effectively approach potential customers, at a time when traditional ways are losing effectiveness over the technology empowered B2B buyers.

Teamwork is at the heart of most organizations today. Given increased pressures for organizations to be flexible, and adaptable, teams are organizing in novel ways, using novel technologies to be increasingly agile. One of these technologies that are increasingly used by distributed teams is Enterprise Social Media (ESM): web-based applications utilized by organizations for enabling communication and collaboration between distributed employees. ESM feature unique affordances that facilitate collaboration, including interactions that are generative: group conversations that entail the creation of innovative concepts and resolutions. These types of interactions are an important attraction for companies deciding to implement ESM. There is a unique opportunity offered for researchers in the field of HCI to study such generative interactions, as all contributions to an ESM platform are made visible, and therefore are available for analysis. Our goal in this preliminary study is to understand the nature of group generative interactions through their linguistic indicators. In this study, we utilize data from an ESM platform used by a multinational organization. Using a 1% sub sample of all logged group interactions, we apply machine-learning to classify text as generative or non-generative and extract the linguistic antecedents for the classified generative content. Our results show a promising method for investigating the linguistic indicators of generative content and provide a proof of concept for investigating group interactions in unobtrusive ways. Additionally, our results would also be able to provide an analytics tool for managers to measure the extent to which text-based tools, such as ESM, effectively nudge employees towards generative behaviors.

Shopping cart abandonment is one of major problems that can affect conversion rate for e-commerce. A complex or ambiguous checkout process can result in customers discarding their purchase transactions. This research examined Thai online buyers’ experience with a checkout process of e-commerce websites and m-commerce applications. Usability studies were conducted with three different sample groups. They were asked to use two different types of e-commerce platforms to purchase either retail or technology-based products. A working age group with general knowledge about technology tested retail m-commerce applications. Another working age group who was tech-savvy tried out e-commerce websites selling technology products. The elderly group performed a test on retail m-commerce applications. Similar usability issues were found among the three user groups. A violation of visibility principle was a major factor causing unsuccessful task completion in the usability tests.

Anthropomorphic design has been widely used in human-computer interactions. Anchored on the baby schema (Kindchenschema) theory, we propose that integrating cuteness elements in an anthropomorphic system can significantly alleviate the users’ negative perceptions of system errors. The results of a laboratory experiment reveal that avatar cuteness can significantly reduce users’ perceived severity of software errors taking place during human-computer interactions. This study not only explores the factor of avatar age in anthropomorphic interface design, but it also introduces the concept of cuteness into HCI research. Practical implications of these findings for human-computer interface design are discussed.

This paper suggests an adoption model for Enterprise Social Networks (ESN) based on Human Computer Interaction aspects in a developing country, Egypt. The study starts with an exploratory phase, where semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten of ESN users, from different operation levels, and in two organizations. Thematic analysis of interviews data suggested personal cognitive dimension of ESN adoption, such as: Perceived Value, Privacy, Power Distance Cultural Dimension, Management Support, Interactivity, and Usability. In light of these interview results, an adoption model was built.The model was validated using a survey administered with a convenient sample of 82 permanent employees from different backgrounds and in various managerial levels, in the same two organizations operating in Egypt.The statistical analysis of the model suggests that Interactivity, Perceived Value, Management Support, and Usability were found to have substantial influences on ESN Adoption. The suggested integrated model helps for better understanding of ESN from the users’ perception. This paper contributes with implications for ESN’s researchers, developers, and managers. This research presents a plausible, integrated framework for investigating the target phenomenon, especially for un-explored cultures.

Since 1980, with the advent of the personal computer (PC), and the development of the Internet, the first “online shopping” appeared in the world. However, many limitations still exist in current online shopping. For instance, experience, environment, interface, or the screen size are entirely different from physical shopping stores. Here, we implemented a system prototype—Virtual Reality Online Shopping (VROS) Platform, which brought the physical shopping experience into the VR world by incorporating VR hardware—Samsung HMD Odyssey+ as the platform base. The VROS was created by the core concept of “home-hub”, which included five different spaces: living room, kitchen, farm, home library and walk-in closets. Different spaces represented as the entrance of shopping categories were connected to the different online shopping stores. The users were able to organize the shopping goods (no matter the user had or still on the wishlist) in the VROS home. To evaluate the VROS, we recruited two subjects to do the two-step experiments by using protocol analysis. The VROS is current an off-line system but is able to apply to real online shopping stores in next version, such as Amazon and eBay.

Well-designed and informative product presentations can support consumers in making purchase decisions. There are plenty of facts and details about a product of interest. However, also emotions are an important aspect for the purchase decision. The unique visualization opportunities of virtual reality (VR) can give users of VR applications the feeling of being there (telepresence). The applications can intensely engage them in a flow experience, comprising the four dimensions of enjoyment, curiosity, focused attention and control. In this work, we claim that VR product presentations can create subjective product experiences for consumers and motivate them to reuse this innovative type of product presentation in the future, by immersing them in a virtual world and causing them to interact with it. To verify the conceptual model a study was conducted with 551 participants who explored a VR hotel application. The results indicate that VR product presentations evoke positive emotions among consumers. The virtual experience made potential customers focus their attention on the virtual world and aroused their curiosity about getting more information about the product in an enjoyable way. In contrast to the theoretical assumption, control did not influence the users’ behavioral intentions to reuse VR product presentation. We conclude that VR product presentations create a feeling of telepresence, which leads to a flow experience that contributes to the behavioral intention of users to reuse VR product presentations in the future.

Live streaming is becoming popular and has attracted large numbers of online viewers. It becomes a social commerce venue where streamers can gain commercial benefits from building the relationship with viewers. Before building relationship with more viewers, how to attract more viewers is the essential foundation in the live streaming industry. This article explores and evaluates what strategies and techniques streamers use to attract more viewers through data source triangulation and methodological triangulation. In details, data were collected from streamers’ self-reports, viewers’ self-reports and online actual behavior; interviews, focus groups and online observation were applied, based on the characteristics of data. Through multiple triangulation, we identified three strategies and techniques for attracting viewers: (i) to increase streamer-viewer interactions, (ii) to create synergy with other streamers, and (iii) to conduct self-promotion. Findings were indicated by the popular streamers and verified by both focus groups and online observations. Our paper contributes to understanding streamer-viewer interactions in computer mediated communication. Live streaming platforms also benefit from this study in terms of platform design and marketing.

As cross-border e-commerce has broad market space and rapid development momentum, more and more manufacturing enterprises begin to explore the application of cross-border e-commerce, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. Therefore, it is crucial to identify the logistics factors that affect cross-border e-commerce logistics service quality, which is important to promote the development of the industry. In this paper, a hybrid multiple criteria decision making method, combining fuzzy theory and DANP model is proposed. According to the results of empirical study, scale of enterprise assets, number of employees, financial standing, emphasis on logistics business and convenience are identified as the key criteria affecting logistics service quality of cross-border e-commerce.

Motivated by the lack of research on how online reviews affect consumers’ evaluation of credence products, we conduct this research. This research in progress explores how emotions embedded in peer-generated online reviews affect consumers’ evaluation and attitude toward different types of products (i.e., search, experience and credence products). Drawing upon information processing theory, construal level theory and literature on online reviews, we propose that the effects of emotions (i.e., valence and arousal) on consumers’ trust toward the related products are moderated by product type. In particular, credence products have higher strengthening effects, compared to search products and experience products. In addition, we argue that psychological distance aroused by the review context weakens the moderating effects of product type. Our research findings have the potential to enrich our understanding of how online reviews affect consumers’ evaluation of different types of products, especially credence products.

The world is confronted with the rise of voice assistants, increasingly used for shopping activities. This paper examines managers’ perceptions of the evolution of voice assistants and their potential effects on the marketing practice. Shopping-related voice assistants are likely to radically change the way consumers search and purchase products with severe impact on brands. However, the behavior of these AI-enabled machines represents a “black box” for brand owners. The study of the managers’ interpretation of a voice-enabled marketplace is critical as it may influence future marketing choices. The authors use an inductive theory construction process to study the phenomenon of voice commerce through the eyes of AI experts and voice-aware managers. A mixed-method approach paced three distinct data collection phases. First, systematic machine behavior observations (Amazon Alexa) unfolded the unique characteristics of voice shopping. Second, in-depth interviews with 30 executives drew the current brand owner’s challenges and opportunities in the context of voice commerce. Third, an expert survey with international managers (N = 62) revealed the expected impact of voice assistants on the shopping process. Findings show that managers consider voice assistants a disruptive technology assuming a central relational role in the consumer market. However, they often divergence in opinions across industry, function, and seniority level. Besides, managers’ familiarity with voice commerce is correlated to a higher optimism towards voice technologies (opportunity for brands) but also a greater sense of urgency (short-term focus) with implications for marketing strategy. This article offers support to brand owners explaining how voice assistants work and examining their effects on consumption. The authors discuss empirical results while providing managerial guidelines to create resilient and sustainable brands in the era of voice commerce.

To reach customers by dialog marketing campaigns is more and more difficult. This is a common problem of companies and marketing agencies worldwide: information overload, multi-channel-communication and a confusing variety of offers make it hard to gain the attention of the target group. The contribution of this paper is four-fold: we provide an overview of the current state of print dialog marketing activities and trends (I). Based on this corpus we identify the main key performance indicators of dialog marketing customer interaction (II). A qualitative user experience study identifies the customer wishes and needs, focusing on lottery offers for senior citizens (III). Finally, we evaluate the success of two different dialog marketing campaigns with 20,000 clients and compare the key performance indicators of the original hands-on experience-based print mailings with user experience tested and optimized mailings (IV).

The present paper explores how attention and emotions influence the effectiveness of banner ads. Participants performed a goal-oriented search on a website which had banner ads displaying indulgent food products (i.e., chocolate). Eye movements and facial expressions were recorded. Attention was measured by total fixation duration. Emotional valence was automatically inferred from facial expressions using facial analysis software. Results show that attention and emotional valence are positively associated with ad recognition and that emotions influence purchase intention differently depending on the degree of attention. Emotional valence is positively associated with purchase intention when attention is low, but negatively related when attention is high. The findings highlight the importance in defining marketing goals when designing online banner ads. Additional implications for both theory and practice are discussed.

Developing effective personalization has become a priority for many firms. Online personalization is considered a key trend for the future of retailing. Despite the vast research and interest in online personalization by academics and practitioners, its understanding remains fragmented and there is not a comprehensive and updated definition, which is able to capture its complexity. Hence, this research aims to provide an analysis of the definitions of online personalization in order to identify elements in common and sources of discrepancies of the concept. The five key elements that are identified are offerings, knowledge, channels, purpose and contextual factors. Moreover, critical issues that hinder the development of a clear understanding of the topic are discussed, such as the overlap with the concepts of customization and perceived personalization. Subsequently, following a similar procedure, a review of the state of the art of personalization studies specific to fashion in the online context is conducted. The study also identifies directions for further research.

The use of the internet and of the (mass) media have in some way technically simplified the internationalization processes of companies, reducing the time needed in order to exchange data and information and facilitating the resolution of operational issues. Within this environment, fashion plays a relevant role; in fact, a considerable part of website and e-commerce offers come from this sector. When facing new markets, fashion companies cannot only provide unique and captivating products, but they also need to offer an opportune and personalized communication, able to cross all the cultural and linguistic boundaries that might occur. In order to face this issue a well-designed localization strategy is required. According to Mele et al. [1] localization can be defined as a “cultural translation” and when applied to online contents it consists in the adaptation of different elements such as texts, images, videos, but also units of measure, sizes or calendars. The paper aims, in this sense, to address the lack of literature concerning localization practices in the online fashion environment, providing a first framework on the depiction of the different cultural values on different fashion websites. The present study is an exploratory benchmarking of the field, realized through a comparative research, based on previous studies related to the depiction of Hofstede’s [2] and Hall’s [3] cultural values provided by Singh et al. and Yalcin et al. [4, 5].

Fashion is a communicative, hands-on embodied practice. In the digital domain, however, fashion is hands-off – consumers cannot actively sense, perceive and apprehend tactile garment qualities online as they would in an offline setting. Innovations in haptic (active touch) technologies might change this situation, enriching visual and textual content with touch feedback. To date and to the authors’ best knowledge, recent research into the significance of haptic information in apparel e-commerce has not involved the use of haptic technologies. This qualitative exploratory study addressed the gap by using a novel surface haptic device to explore potential consumers’ reactions to the introduction of haptic feedback in a fashion e-commerce context. The study indicates that providing richer perceptual cues – tactile and visual – with interactive surface haptic effects, adds value to the fashion customer’s e-commerce journey, particularly at the information-gathering stage. The finding is moderated by the perceived risk of experiencing a disconnect between the digital touch experience and the actual garment feel.

The following investigation presents the definitions of cultural heritage, cultural appropriation, corporate reputation to later evaluate how could Cultural Appropriation infringement could be detrimental to a company’s corporate reputation in the digital context. Two cases of cultural appropriation crisis in the fashion industry are analyzed. On the one hand, the crisis faced by Carolina Herrera due to the similarities of the firm’s Resort 2020 collection and different cultural elements from communities in Mexico, and on the other hand, the crisis faced by Gucci with a blackface accusation in 2019. The paper leads us to conclude that nowadays cultural appropriation in fashion can lead to a reputational crisis because the different stakeholders of a company in the industry are evolving and demanding from them to be more aware of controversial issues, among those, the misrepresentation of a culture. Also, how digital communication arises new questions for this kind of crisis. Evaluating two of the most recent cases of cultural appropriation helps to shed light on the importance of these issues in the current world.

This paper analyzes how consumers are interacting with brands in the new digital context. The question research is if there is any homogenization of user behavior when dealing with brands in the e-commerce or not. The paper study Digital User Behavior in Fashion e-commerce, for this purpose, user behavior of Fast Fashion (FF) and Luxury-Premium (LP) e-commerce webpages are investigated. Therefore, a group of 20 fashion brands was selected: 10 of these brands belonged to the FF category and the other 10 to the LP category. User digital behavior is analyzed using six Key Digital Behavior Variables (KDBV), all performative variables that represent how consumers interact with brands through their web pages, based on web user session analysis. Studying digital user behavior enables us to get to know fashion brand consumers and users better. As we have observed, there are increasingly few differences between the behavior of FF web site users and LP web site users.

Website cookies have become an indispensable part of today’s e-commerce due to the high benefits they provide to companies. However, to leverage their full potential, a multitude of legal framework conditions must be taken into account. A phenomenon that has emerged from this context are cookie notices which can be found on the majority of today’s e-commerce websites. Such notices are primarily implemented because they are seen as a legal necessity and not due to the expectation of any interrelated benefits. However, as consumers tend to evaluate whether they intend to purchase from a specific online shop in the first few seconds of a website visit, it cannot be ruled out that this evaluation is influenced by a cookie notice. Therefore, the aim of this research is to investigate whether the most commonly found versions of cookie notices (pop-up and cookie bar) have an influence on perceived privacy and trust. The following hypotheses were subsequently tested by the means of an online experiment: in a realistically designed shopping scenario, where a simple shopping task had to be completed in a fictitious online shop, participants were each exposed to one of two cookie notice versions or no cookie notice at all. Afterwards all participants provided their responses to an online survey which allowed for the measurement of the influence on perceived privacy and e-trust. The results were differing: Despite most hypotheses were to be rejected, we arrived at a recommendation to operators of e-commerce websites to implement pop-up cookie notices.

With the continuous penetration of green concepts, platforms that provide green activities and environmental information have begun to develop. Exploring the user experience to obtain key design focus of such platforms is conducive to the promotion of the environmental protection concept. This paper studies the influencing factors of the usage intention of green public welfare activity platform. Through preliminary investigation and literature summary, 10 factors affecting the willingness to use such platforms are selected. The face-to-face surveys are conducted with DEMATEL questionnaires to evaluate interactions between any two factors. The Prominence and the Relation value of factors are calculated in the DEMATEL tool and the causal diagram is drawn. The result shows that the most significant factors concerning the usage intention of green public welfare activity platforms are content availability, user friendliness, and interactive community. In order to develop these three goals, visual effect of interaction, interface aesthetics and diversification of content expressions are design points. This study provides suggestions for the design of green public welfare activity platform.

Micro-celebrities (MCs) are people who leverage on their popularity, gained among followers, by showcasing their talent over the Internet. Given the strong influence power of micro-celebrity, micro-celebrity endorsement is becoming a valuable phenomenon. This research aims to explore the impact of informational content and narrative content, which are embedded in micro-celebrity’s recommendation post, on the persuasion effectiveness. From the perspective of elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and narrative transportation theory, a research model is discussed. We propose that the informational content may positively influence persuasion effectiveness through central route, and narrative content may positively influence persuasion effectiveness through peripheral route. Moreover, follower’s emotional attachment and role model-identification on the micro-celebrity may moderate the two processing. A plan for data collection and analysis is discussed. In the future, we will finish the data collection and analysis to justify the proposed hypotheses.