User Analysis

In gathering preliminary data for our project, we interviewed three subjects who have backgrounds in technology. We believe these subjects are reasonable since their demographic is likely to consider We have identified three demographics who would likely benefit using a mobile device to look up products up while shopping.  Basically anybody with a smart phone capable of making informed consumer decisions will be apart of the user base.  

For each subject, we presented three related products that they might go to a store to purchase. To A, we presented laptops. To B, we presented couches. To C, we presented clothing articles (jackets). We narrated a hypothetical situation where they were out shopping for a product of the type presented, and that they've narrowed their choices down to these three choices. We then asked about how they would go about determining which they would purchase:

Subject A, male, stated that they would purchase the smallest laptop, but because it is a larger purchase, they would have previously looked it up online. However, they stated that they often type in Amazon queries at the grocery store for certain expensive products (e.g. razors). When asked if they'd ever used the picture-based lookup applications from Amazon or Google, they stated that those have not worked well in the past, and that it was more reliable for them to type a text-based query despite its slow speed.

: technological innovators, power users, and casual users. In this section, we describe these demographics. We discuss their problems and explain how our application may benefit them. Finally, to substantiate our claims, we located three research subjects and interviewed them about how a mobile product identification software will assist them in their lives. Our results are surprising and suggest that our proposed mobile phone application can have a significant impact.

The Technological Innovators

*Overview: *A compelling demographic are technological innovators and researchers who are likely to be early adopters of technology. People in this demographic typically use sites like Amazon.com and Newegg.com to find products and read their reviews. These users have grown accustomed to quick access to reviews and product information while shopping. Consequently, we believe this demographic will find a mobile lookup application useful since they want to replicate the online experience while in stores. 

*User Study: *We located one research subject who was currently looking to purchase a laptop. We asked him how he makes purchasing decisions. He responded that he typically uses a variety of metrics such as price, appearance, functionality, and reviews. In order to find reputable reviews while at stores, he uses web-services such as Amazon to type in queries for products he is on the verge of purchasing. He argued that picture-based product lookup applications from Amazon or Google do not work well because it often finds the wrong product or are cumbersome. Consequently, he prefers to use a more reliable text-based query, but he agreed that its slow speed was an annoyance.

The Power Users

*Overview: *Another type of user are power users of technology, but not necessarily innovators. These users 

*User Study: *Subject B, female, stated that because furniture is also a relatively large purchase, she would have previously gotten an idea of what price ranges to expect by Googling products from home. When told that one of the three selected products was not initially found in their online searches, she said she would talk to the salespeople and later go home, look it up and come back. When asked if she ever looked up pricing and reviews from her phone while at the store, she said that she would consider doing it if she was alone, but not if she had already engaged a salesperson as she felt doing so would be rude.

The Causal Users

*Overview: *The final demographic we consider are users who only use a casual amount of technology in their lifes. 

*User Study: *Subject C, male, stated that to determine which coat to purchase, they would first want to try it on and then subsequently look up reviews for determining how durable it is. Their chosen method for doing so was to "awkwardly type in the product name into Amazon."

To summarize, A and C were familiar with image-based product lookup services, but were more inclined to "awkwardly type a query" than to take a picture, partly due to reliability reasons. B had not previously used mobile product lookup services in the store at all, reasoning that doing so seemed rude. On the other hand, she was perfectly willing to go home, look it up, and come back later.

These Summary: These results suggest that looking up products on mobile devices is useful, but that it is currently slow and awkward. We believe that for certain types of products, image-based product lookups can be made more appealing and efficient in three ways: 1) by providing the user with an interface in which it is easy to specify what product is interesting (thereby helping computer vision algorithms), 2) by allowing the user to specify multiple products of interest (both helping computer vision algorithms, and providing interfaces for efficient comparison shopping), and 3) by providing search results that include price and links to reviews.

Task Analysis

For each demographic, there are three primary tasks that they must solve: specifying an object of interest in the mobile phone, 

Expediting picture-based product lookups can be broken down into three tasks:

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