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TELE-SHOPPING SERVICES USING VIRTUAL REALITY AND INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA

Cel

One of the major limitations of computer-based shopping is seen as the absence of a "touch and feel" opportunity for the shopper. The research work of TELESHOPPE will address this telepresence requirement by commissioning an inventory of multimedia and virtual reality capabilities. Some of these are available commercially, others are available in the research laboratories of the project partners, and still others will be created as part of the remit of the project.
The focus of the research will be to identify methods for harmonious integration of these individual technologies in a teleshopping context, and optimise and measure the usability of the resulting user interface as a function of network bandwidth which can be delivered to the user.
Usability trials will take place in several countries, with a variety of networks which offer increasing bandwidth:
ISDN
ADSL
CATV
IBC
The added value of this research will therefore be to characterise the user interface design for IBC-based teleshopping systems by means of a series of controlled user trials. These will allow measurement, on an objective and subjective basis, of the performance contributions derived from each individual component in the user interface.
The hallmark of TELESHOPPE is the user-orientation of all of the development work, such that hands-on use of new services is an early requirement for the project plan. Usability engineering of the service in terms of measuring user-friendliness, quality of service and market acceptability of developments will accelerate the launch of commercial services for home shopping in Europe, and optimise the capability of the project to realise a viable, revenue-generating service for the partners.
As part of their individual corporate strategies, the partners in TELESHOPPE will seek to disseminate the advances made on the project via public forums. The means deployed for this will include exhibitions and demonstrations using appropriate National Hosts. This will also have the effect of raising public awareness of the services being developed, and should result in the stimulation of demand for advanced communications services.
Expected Impact
With project trials focused on networks of tele-cottage networks, one of the key social impacts from the results of TELESHOPPE will be the introduction of better shopping services. Access to such services will allow for better scheduling of consumer time - authorising the ability to shop at times convenient to the shopper - rather than being confined to those of the shop.
The economic impact of the work will include the elimination of a small mountain of paper catalogues, costly in their production, and wasteful in their use of natural resources.
An attendant economic advantage will be the flexibility and rapid response then offered to the service provider, to rapidly change product offerings, reducing the marketing changes to that of a video production enterprise rather than a publication enterprise.
The project will contribute significantly to the underpinning of conditions for improved competitive differentiation of the European Retail industry in the global marketplace. It is expected that new channels to market will be opened up by the provision of broadband communication to the consumer - providing the immediacy of response necessary to promote the success of a tele-shopping experience.
More generally, the results of usability trials are expected to provide valuable input to means and methods for ensuring the market success of electronic commerce.
The results of the project are also expected to impact a number of other aspects, including: copyrighting; the nature of commercial agreements; deployment of secure payment methods; governmental taxation regimes, and their application in respect of the international shopper.

Main contributions to the programme objectives:
Main deliverables
Integrated existing and new technologies of tele-presence to support tele-shopping
Contribution to the programme
An application which will support the European retail sector in the global e-commerce marketplace

Technical Approach
Novel methods of usability engineering will be deployed in order to integrate and support the systems components necessary to implement such a teleshopping system. The computer-based multimedia system technologies will be optimised for the user interface.
Simulated "touch and feel" will incorporate facilities to present virtual reality graphics integrated with motion picture video, computer graphics, and synthetic "talking heads" with synthetic speech and speech recognition capabilities. These animated "personae" are therefore the "virtual shop assistants" in the teleshopping scheme.
Development of exciting and natural user interface scenario will be a unique aspect of the work. These user interface designs will incorporate spoken language, multi-lingual dialogue capability, and will be tested by means of a series of usability trials.
Key Issues
Multidisciplinary technical and business collaboration, and management of the complexity associated with the integration of systems components from a diversity of technologies, are seen as issues key to the success of the project.
From a technological and business standpoint, key to success of the project is the seamless ability to integrate new methods of:
software engineering
virtual reality
interactive coded video
speech technology
spoken dialogue engineering
video production and programming
Summary of Trials
The TELESHOPPE demonstrator system will be developed by means of user-led service descriptions, which are based on a detailed analysis of user requirements. The demonstration systems have been initially trialed and evaluated in the context of a testbed offered by the network of some 130 tele-cottages within the UK. Within this network, which is supported in a number of rural communities throughout the country, chosen sites took part in early usability trials.
In the future, trials will be carried out over CATV, ADSL and IBC networks in several other European countries, so as to allow multi-national and multi-lingual trials to be conducted. These trials are targeted to take place in the Netherlands, France, Italy, Sweden and Denmark.

Dziedzina nauki

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Data not available

System finansowania

CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

Koordynator

AGORA Conseil
Wkład UE
Brak danych
Adres
Allée de la Veissière, 7
38640 CLAIX
Francja

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Ostatnia aktualizacja: 22 Lutego 2000

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Permalink: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/AC099/pl

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