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UBC Theses and Dissertations
How to provide "live help" : the effects of text-to-speech voice and 3D avatar on perception of presence in electronic shopping Qiu, Lingyun
Abstract
With the prevalence of online shopping, companies began to provide real-time communications on their websites to facilitate human-to-human interactions between sales representative and online customers. This study investigates the interface design of such "Live Help" functions. More specifically, it attempts to understand whether the implementation of Text-To-Speech (TTS) voice and 3D avatar in the user interface of "Live Help" affects user's views of the interaction, the service staff, and the website. A laboratory experiment was designed and conducted to empirically test the hypotheses that TTS voice and avatar will have significant effects on user's perception of presence, flow, and trust. A 3 by 2 full factorial design (with 3 different levels on the dimension of voice and 2 different levels on the dimension of avatar) was adopted and 72 university students and staff members were recruited for the study. Results showed that TTS voice had significant effects on increasing user's perceptions of flow and trust, while 3D avatar enhances user's feeling of telepresence. These findings not only provide a good starting point for studying the virtual communication experience in online shopping, but also offer practitioners useful guidelines on how to integrate and improve the interface design of real time human-to-human communications on the shopping websites.
Item Metadata
Title |
How to provide "live help" : the effects of text-to-speech voice and 3D avatar on perception of presence in electronic shopping
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
2002
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Description |
With the prevalence of online shopping, companies began to provide real-time communications on their websites to facilitate human-to-human interactions between sales representative and online customers. This study investigates the interface design of such "Live Help" functions. More specifically, it attempts to understand whether the implementation of Text-To-Speech (TTS) voice and 3D avatar in the user interface of "Live Help" affects user's views of the interaction, the service staff, and the website. A laboratory experiment was designed and conducted to empirically test the hypotheses that TTS voice and avatar will have significant effects on user's perception of presence, flow, and trust. A 3 by 2 full factorial design (with 3 different levels on the dimension of voice and 2 different levels on the dimension of avatar) was adopted and 72 university students and staff members were recruited for the study. Results showed that TTS voice had significant effects on increasing user's perceptions of flow and trust, while 3D avatar enhances user's feeling of telepresence. These findings not only provide a good starting point for studying the virtual communication experience in online shopping, but also offer practitioners useful guidelines on how to integrate and improve the interface design of real time human-to-human communications on the shopping websites.
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Extent |
4491776 bytes
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Genre | |
Type | |
File Format |
application/pdf
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Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2009-10-19
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0090903
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
2002-11
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.