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

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Marketing Wearable Computers to ConsumersAn
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 users
  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 Labs Wearable Computing Group
• Inventors

Thad Starner
Steven Mann
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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 Technologys 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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Moores Chasm
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Purchasing Decision

• Based on Rogers, five factors that impact
  adoption
• Perceived attributes of the innovation
• Number of people involved in the adoption
  decision (individual vs. an organization)
• Communication channels used to promote the
  innovation
• Nature of the social system into which the
  product is adopted
• Extent of the change agents promotional efforts

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Gartner Group Model

• Customer Adoption Roadmap involves
• Consumer attitudes and behaviors
• Market conditions
• Accelerators and inhibitors
• Challenges and opportunities for the industries
  that participate
• 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
• Knowledge of an innovation
• Forming an attitude toward the innovation
• Decision to adopt or reject the innovation
• Implementation of the new idea
• 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
• Malcolms Tipping Point
• Law of the Few
• Stickiness Factor
• Power of Context

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Challenges to Rogers 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 factorss 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 _at_ 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 700 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
• mobile GPS to assist in finding directions and
  business locations
• Communication functionality (cell phone, instant
  messaging, email, instant translation)
• Mobile Internet
• Contact management

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Product Improvement Suggestions

• From Focus Group
• Improving the screen visibility
• Improving the input mechanism
• Removing the wires from the CPU to mouse and the
  CPU to the HMD
• Fixing the fit of the HMD
• 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 youre using up 90 of your brainpower just
  to work the wearable, its 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
• Doesnt 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 cant 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 dont 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 Systems
  Second Reader).