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Marketing Wearable Computers to Consumers: An Examination of Early Adopter Consumers' Feelings and Attitudes Toward Wearable Computers

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What is a Wearable Computer? ◼ a fully functional, self-powered, self- contained computer that is worn on the body providing access to information and interaction with information anywhere and at anytime.[1] [1] T. Mann Starner, S. Rhodes, B. Levine, J. Healy, J.Kirsch, D. Picard R, and Pentland, A., "Augmented Reality through Wearable Computing. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments," in Fundamentals of Wearable Computing (1997).pp. 6.

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Unique Features Different from other mobile devices: ◼ Fully Functioning Computers ◼ Head Mounted Displays ◼ Always On ◼ Input Devices ◼ Power Supply

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Fully Functioning Computer ◼ Can offer as much computing power as a desktop computer

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Head Mounted Displays ◼ 2 major optical designs ◼ 2 types of functionality ◼ Optical ◼ Video

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“Always-On” Computing ◼ Computing is not the main task ◼ Either enhances or supports the user’s interaction with the environment by providing additional information

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Input Devices ◼ Body-mounted keyboards ◼ Speech recognition software ◼ Hand-held keyboards (or touch screens) ◼ Optical mice ◼ Chording devices Chording Device: “Twiddler”

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Power Supply ◼ Due to always on functionality, wearable computers have more power demands than other mobile devices. ◼ Suggestion for increased battery life include: ◼ Self-generated power through shoe inserts ◼ Synthetic fibers that generate power when exposed to light

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Demo of the Poma

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History of Wearable Computing ◼ MIT Media Lab’s Wearable Computing Group ◼ Inventors: Steven Mann Thad Starner

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Wearable Computing Industry ◼ Used for defense, intelligence, commercial and retail applications. ◼ Recently entered consumer market ◼ Xybernaut Corporation - Mann ◼ Charmed Technologies - Starner

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Consumer Products ◼ Xybernaut's Poma & Charmed Technology’s CharmIt CharmIt Poma

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Wearable Computing Applications ◼ Sharing Experiences Via Video ◼ Remembrance Applications ◼ Smart Fabrics ◼ GPS Driven Information ◼ NanoTechnology

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Predicting: Product Adoption, Market Impact & Consumer Behavior

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Product Adoption ◼ Everett Rogers ◼ Product Adoption Theory ◼ Categories of Adopters ◼ Factors that Impact Adoption ◼ Geoffrey Moore ◼ The “Chasm” between early adopters and mainstream market

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Adoption Diffusion Curve

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Moore’s Chasm

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Purchasing Decision ◼ Based on Rogers, five factors that impact adoption: 1. Perceived attributes of the innovation 2. Number of people involved in the adoption decision (individual vs. an organization) 3. Communication channels used to promote the innovation 4. Nature of the social system into which the product is adopted 5. Extent of the change agent’s promotional efforts

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Gartner Group Model Customer Adoption Roadmap involves: 1. Consumer attitudes and behaviors 2. Market conditions 3. Accelerators and inhibitors 4. Challenges and opportunities for the industries that participate 5. Opportunities for non-technology marketers [1] Richard Trinker & Brian Smith, "Consumer Technology Adoption Roadmap," Gartner G2 (2002). pp. 5-6

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Stages of Decision Making Based on Rogers, the individual passes through five stages in the process of making a purchasing decision: 1. Knowledge of an innovation 2. Forming an attitude toward the innovation 3. Decision to adopt or reject the innovation 4. Implementation of the new idea 5. Confirmation of this decision

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Factors that Impact Rate of Adoption Rogers discovered that there is a 49%- 87% variance in the rate of adoption, which can be explained by the following five attributes: ➢ Relative advantage ➢ Compatibility ➢ Complexity ➢ Trialability ➢ Observability

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Consumer Valued Attributes For example, the role social prestige plays in purchasing decisions ◼ Malcolm’s Tipping Point ◼ Law of the Few ◼ Stickiness Factor ◼ Power of Context

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Challenges to Roger’s Diffusion Model ◼ Applied to adoption of any innovation ◼ Does not account for the time that an adoption process may take ◼ Can not predict the total number of innovators and early adopters ◼ Does not account for various other market factors that will influence rates of adoption

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Consumer Behavior Affect the following factors’s impact on purchasing decision: ◼ Social ◼ Cultural ◼ Personal ◼ Psychological

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Theories of Motivation ◼ The most familiar human motivation theories are from the works of Marshall, Freud, Veblen, Herzberg and Maslow. ◼ Marshall model – motivated by economic factors ◼ Freud – subconscious psychological factors ◼ Veblen –driven by social prestige ◼ Herzberg – satisfiers vs. dissatifiers ◼ Maslow – Hierarchy of needs

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Theories of Perception ◼ Selective attention ◼ Selective distortion ◼ Selective retention

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Communication Channel ◼ Interpersonal better for complex technology products, mass media for easy to understand and adopt products. ◼ Importance of Change Agents

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Predicting Market Demand Bass Model

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Prediction Market Demand ◼ Other Models: ◼ Delphi –convening experts Forecast based on a similar market ◼ Forecast based on individual demographics driven purchases ◼ Forecast based on sampling consumers and extrapolating

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Application of Models to Predicting Adoption for Wearable Computers ◼ Focus on gathering consumer attitudes and behaviors that will affect adoption interest and rates ◼ Use of Gartner Group model ◼ Use of consumer behavior and motivation theories.

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Data Collection

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Data Collection ◼ 4 sources of data ◼ 2 email driven/web based surveys ◼ Early adopters asked to give their reactions about wearable computing features and applications and interest in smart fabrics ◼ Focus Group with Poma product ◼ Daily Use Trial with Poma

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Demographic Summary – Survey #1 ◼ 24 questions @ their technology use and interest in wearable computers ◼ Launched December 3, 2003 ◼ A total of 256 people (97 men & 157 women) responded. ◼ Survey respondents were mostly women ages 31-40 who work in the DC metro area and make $50,000 to $74,999 a year as a trained professional or self-employed/partner.

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Demographic Summary – Survey #2 ◼ 16 questions about interest in specific wearable computer features and integration with smart fabrics ◼ Launched February 14, 2003 ◼ A total of 90 people responded with 15 men and 78 women. ◼ Women, 25-40 age range, work in the technology, communications or design profession, live in the DC metro area, annual income of $40K-$75K a year. Currently own multiple mobile technologies.

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Demographic Summary – Focus Group ◼ The Poma focus group was held on a February 10, 2003, a weekday night at 7:00 PM in a classroom on the Georgetown University campus. ◼ 12 participants – most in tech industry ◼ Ages: 26 to 50, majority in their mid 30s. ◼ All from greater DC metro area. ◼ All owned multiple mobile devices

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Demographic Summary – Daily Use Trial ◼ Joe, a 24-year-old Korean male who lived in the DC metro area. ◼ Joe is a customer service representative at a mutual fund company and is an early adopter. ◼ He owns a digital camera, laptop, PDA, smart phone, and MP3 player.

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Data Collection – Common Themes ◼ Impact of pre-existing attitudes and expectations ◼ Concern about how the technology would change their lives ◼ Feedback about functionality and applications that would be of use ◼ Product improvement suggestions ◼ Feedback about price and marketing

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Data Collection – Pre-existing attitudes and expectations ◼ In every situation, their expectations of what the technology could do and how they would use the technology did not match their first experiences with the product. Focus Group: ◼ Mike commented, “I thought it would be cool and life changing, and it ended up being mediocre and not that interesting.”

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Survey – Pre-Existing Concepts ◼ Associations: ◼ Mobile Internet (8 out of 256) ◼ Smart Clothing (36 out of 256) ◼ Dick Tracy, Star Trek, Matrix, James Bond (8 out of 256) ◼ Technology Implants (3 out of 256) ◼ PDAs (31 out of 256) ◼ Negative

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Concepts of “Wearable Computer” ◼ Exchanging business cards by shaking hands or a really dumb hat that tells me temperature and humidity. ◼ The geek sitting on the fountain scaring the pigeons.

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Data Collection – Common Concerns ◼ Concern about Impact on Social Interactions ◼ Concerns about user attention ◼ Concerns about always being connected

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Concern –Always Connected Do we need to be so connected? Really, has "portable" communication like the cell phone really made our lives better? Or simply made us more chained to our jobs etc? I see many people who just "must" stay connected wasting much time and increasing their anxiety when not connected. I think of the benefits it could produce but worry about the abuses -- the "big brother" effect, or more Spam.

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Concern – Impact on Social Interactions I'm disconnected from the real world often enough I don't need to have the real world represented as a video image.

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Concern – User Attention With a wearable computer, you can work while shopping, exercising, and - most frightening of all - driving “On my ride, home I broke the rules and wore the device as I was driving. With the device on I had a hard time at times keeping focus even though all I was doing was driving and trying to avoid paying attention to the screen. It has a way of creating tunnel vision. This was something that I had noticed earlier when I tried to talk to co-workers with a Word document up. I was able to focus on their face but the rest of their body would wash out.” – Joe, daily test subject

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Feedback – Functionality & Applications ◼ Full page, mobile Internet ◼ Focus Group: 1. mobile GPS to assist in finding directions and business locations 2. Communication functionality (cell phone, instant messaging, email, instant translation) 3. Mobile Internet 4. Contact management

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Product Improvement Suggestions From Focus Group: 1. Improving the screen visibility 2. Improving the input mechanism 3. Removing the wires from the CPU to mouse and the CPU to the HMD 4. Fixing the fit of the HMD 5. Limited battery life

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Improvement of Product Features - HMD ◼ HMD ◼ Focus group and daily use found it impossible to use ◼ Survey respondents were more interested in HMD displays than traditional handheld or MicroVision displays

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Improvement of Product Features – Input ◼ Focus group and daily use participants wanted different input devices “If you’re using up 90% of your brainpower just to work the wearable, it’s not an augmentation but a tremendous handicap.” Alex Lightman, Charmed Technologies ◼ Suggestions: ◼ Pen style input for data entry ◼ Thumb keyboard ◼ Voice recognition

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Improvement of Product Features – Operating System ◼ Focus group and daily use participants wanted Pocket PC or Palm interface, not Windows CE

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Interest in Wearable Computers + Smart Fabrics ◼ Industry thinks consumers will be more interested in wearable computers if they are embedded in cloth ◼ Consumers sampled for this study were not interested in smart fabrics ◼ Too disposable when fashions change

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Marketing the Wearable ◼ Respondent Suggestions: ◼ Create an improved product ◼ Provide customer testimonials ◼ Provide ability to try the product (for ex. demos in Best Buy) ◼ Highlight the wireless and the mobility ◼ Highlight the software ◼ Use “cool” cultural references (The Matrix)

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Interest in Purchasing ◼ No respondent was interested in purchasing the Poma without improvements ◼ Consumers were thought $1200 was to high, and were comfortable with a price range of $400-$700 ◼ “At that price point, no one is going to buy it without trying it one” – focus group participant

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Pivotal “Killer App” Ability to access mobile Internet

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Wireless Internet The evolution and current state of WiFi and cellular networks

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Wireless Internet ◼ Network Economic Theory ◼ Mechanics of Wireless Data Transmission ◼ History and Evolution of Wireless Standards: WiFi and Cellular

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Network Economies ◼ Network Effects ◼ Standards ◼ Interoperability

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Standards ◼ Standards are composed of agreed upon rules or models that outline principles and practices to follow that will ensure interoperability. ◼ Two standards: ◼ Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) ◼ Poma currently uses this standard ◼ 2.5-3 G Cellular Standards

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The Mechanics of Wireless Data Transmission ◼ Electromagnetic waves carry voice and data from the mobile device to a receiver and then on to another wireless device or the Internet. ◼ The number of oscillations per second of an electromagnetic wave is called its frequency, f ◼ Frequencies are is measured in Hz (in honor of Heinrich Hertz). ◼ Electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light. ◼ Higher frequencies (cellular) bounce off obstacles

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Wireless Internet - WiFi ◼ WiFi ◼ Pros: ◼ Free access ◼ Ability to support high data transfer rates ◼ Doesn’t require the firm to create carrier agreements ◼ Cons: ◼ Patchy coverage ◼ Hard to configure

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Wireless Internet - Cellular ◼ Pros: ◼ Expansive coverage ◼ Easy for user to configure ◼ Cons: ◼ Requires formal carrier arrangement between hardware and cellular provider ◼ Infrastructure can’t yet support high data demands or consistent connection

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Current State of Wireless Internet ◼ Neither standard had enough of a footprint or enough infrastructure support to support true mobile computing ◼ Wearable computing firms should move toward arranging cellular agreements so that consumers will have the ease of use associated with cellular supported computing.

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Conclusions ◼ Early Adopter consumers are ready for the concept of wearable computing ◼ They are not interested in the Poma ◼ The “Killer App” is the ability to access full page Internet content while mobile ◼ Consumers don’t want “always-on” computing

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Features of the Improved Consumer Wearable Computer ◼ Uses new MicroOptical eyewear for HMD ◼ Palm OS or Pocket PC OS ◼ Is supported by cellular infrastructure and offers cellular phone features ◼ Pen based input ◼ Provides GPS-driven content ◼ Appealing software ◼ Longer battery life ◼ Durable

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Is the Wearable Computing Industry ready for consumers’ interest ◼ No. Keep an eye out for system integrators that combine technologies and market the combined product (like International Imaging System’s Second Reader).