The date is finally set for the defense of my thesis, Social Issues, Behaviours and Routines of Ubiquitous Commerce users in North America. The defense will take place at the SFU Surrey Campus on March 12th, the event will start with a 20 minute presentation of my work, followed by questions from my examining committee. The dissertation encompasses work I have been doing over the last four years which has looked specifically at new forms of commerce such as social commerce, mobile commerce and mobile payment systems (such as Google Wallet, Levelup and Amazon Payment). From these studies I have published 7 papers, including: 2 workshop position papers, 2 Work in Progresses, 1 Magazine Article, 2 full conference papers, and a chapter in an HCI methods text book. All this work combined contributes to my 157 page dissertation.
Abstract: eCommerce has dramatically changed over the last several years, leaving a gap of knowledge around what these changes mean to—and how they affect—the user and their experiences. To address this gap, I collected empirical evidence through three studies. The first looks at mobile web commerce, and focuses heavily on the issue of trust. The second looks at group shopping sites, an example of social commerce. The third study investigates mobile payment services and user challenges and successes. Although each study introduces specific design implications, together they expand extant work in traditional eCommerce to include social and mobile aspects and thus contribute new knowledge toward a more ubiquitous commerce (ubi-commerce) experience.
I define ubi-commerce as specifically dependent on the recent mass adoption of mobile devices, social engagement online, and new technologies for payment processing. I discuss these ubiquitous forms of commerce as a North American entity only and thus the design implications are meant to be specific only to this region.
My original contribution to knowledge consists of new knowledge and description of ubi-commerce user behaviours; six ubi-commerce design implications, derived from empirical evidence gathered from a variety of studies described in this dissertation; and methodological contributions, by applying existing research methods to new situations and contexts.
Keywords: mobile commerce, social commerce, electronic commerce, mobile payment systems, ubi-commerce, behaviours
All are welcome to attend the defense. Special thanks to my senior supervisor Dr. Carman Neustaedter for amazing support over the years.