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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."
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