A Control Structure For Intelligent Emotion-Oriented ECommerce System 9

Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering 2010 Vol IWCE 2010, June 30 - July 2, 2010, London, U.K.Many different types of formats have been used in webdesign and these designs can evoke different emotionalresponses. A study done by Bowker and Dillman [18]indicated that users showed visible signs of distress suchas the re-alignment of the human body and negativefacial expressions when a right aligned format is applied.The majority of the users surveyed stated they preferredthe left-align format.Navigation is also needed in good web design.However many designers believe that the inclusion ofnavigation buttons or links is just a matter of providingthe user with a sense of direction. The purpose ofnavigation elements goes beyond this trivial thought.Navigation let the user know what is available and whataction should be taken in order achieve a specific result.Navigation allows the customer to have access to allareas of the website. Such navigation features includehyperlinks, search and email links. A well organisedwebsite, with a profession look, and intuitive navigationand task oriented functionality influences the emotionalinteractions of perception of credibility, trust, perceptionof security, and perceived ease of use [19].Graphics make any website come alive with excitingcolours, personalized logos, and animated text. An imageis a fun element that can be applied to a website. Oneimage can tell a story of a thousand words. In order tomake a user feel comfortable in an eCommerceenvironment, the site should be visually appealing. Theuser should be encouraged to stay and browse thewebsite, which may lead to the eventual purchase of aproduct. For example when walking through a clothingstore, a customer may enjoy the shopping experiencebecause the store is colourfully displayed. However thecustomer may be turned off by a store that appears to bedull and boring and not properly laid out. Graphicaleffects, therefore, should complement the contents of theeCommerce site. Lee, Wright and Fisher [20] noted thatapart from physical expressions like smiles or laughter,positive emotions were generally generated as a result ofpeople’s experience with graphics. People could alsohave a sense of satisfaction from their experience withgraphical elements. Nevertheless, there should be balancein the amount of graphics used. Too many graphics maybe distracting and cause a delay, depending on the speedof the user’s computer system.Video is also an exciting way to enliven the user’sexperience and add some interactivity. It helps todemonstrate and give the user a better idea of thefunctions of the product. As online videos become morepopular, retailers’ are using video as a site feature toassist the shopping research and purchase process. The2009 State of Retailing Online Merchandising Reportindicated that approximately one third of retailerssurveyed believed that the use of videos increased salesand interactivity [21]. Consumers who view videos havemore positive emotions towards an item than consumerswho are exposed to plain text [22].Depending on the type of website, an appropriatetheme also should be chosen. The theme of any sitewould encompass the type of text, fonts and graphicsISBN: 978-988-17012-9-9ISSN: 2078-0958 (Print); ISSN: 2078-0966 (Online)used. Themes would range from education,entertainment, professional, corporate and personal.Design and experiences [24] in a retail environment needto focus on an appropriate theme, which characterizes thecompany and appeals to customers’ emotions.Human are audible beings. Audio can enhance thefeatures of a particular product and heighten theexperience of the shopper. An eCommerce site thatprovides background music or sound can capture theinterest of the customer. The importance of sound in aneCommerce environment is to communicate the attributeof the product. A survey was conducted by Fiorre andKelly of the School of Computing and IT, showing thatthe lack of sound in many websites is failing [5].Retailers should focus more on enriching the user’sexperience with sound, rather than only dealing with thehedonic aspects of the products. Verbal stimuli such asaudio have a greater ability to evoke enactive imagery,which may go along with active or affective arousalparticipation compared to visual stimuli [23].3) eCommerce Customer - Without the customer thequestion to be asked is, “Who are you planning for?” Thecustomer’s response towards an eCommerce site isimportant to web developers and their companies. Designelements are shaped to promote positive responsivenessfrom the customer. However, not all customers are thesame. An eCommerce system should provide anenvironment that caters for three types of customers:1) The first time customer;2) The frequent customer ; and3) The occasional customerAn eCommerce environment should focus on capturingthe attention of the first time customer. When accessing asite for the very first time, the first response is mostlylikely going to be an emotional response. The visualappeal of the interface can directly influence theacceptability and the usage of the system. As Lingaardnoted [6], “an immediate negative impression may welldetermine our subsequent perception of the site’s qualityand usability, whereas we may inherently judge a sitemaking a good first impression to be ‘better’ ”. Theappropriate response to the emotional state of thecustomer would create a certain level of confidence in theeCommerce system.The system having gained knowledge on the frequentcustomer should maintain a relationship that wouldcontinually encourage the customer to visit the site. Thesystem would already know what factors trigger theemotions of the customer. Knowing the customer’s pastpurchases, profile details and interests is a maximisingbenefit to any eCommerce environment. The customerknows that the company is dedicated to satisfying theirneeds through the products or services that they offer.The occasional customer also plays an important rolein the eCommerce environment. The key is to create alasting impression on the customer. Despite the numberof times a customer may visit an eCommerce site, theymust know that this particular environment can satisfyWCE 2010

Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering 2010 Vol IWCE 2010, June 30 - July 2, 2010, London, U.K.their needs emotionally and physically and it is one theycan rely on.4) eCommerce System - Designers of an eCommercesystem must be made aware that whether a design issophisticated or simple, ease of use is an important factor.This element bridges the gap of customers remainingloyal to the company and attracting new customers. AneCommerce system that successfully bridges thecommunicational gap between the user and machineshould have the following attributes: Believability of the interaction; Service and functionality being offered; and Underlying personality and emotional capabilities.5) Outputs - The aim of any eCommerce web developer isto create an environment that would ultimately lead to thecustomer purchasing a product or service. The precisecombination of the previous mentioned design elementsshould convince the customer that they must purchase theproduct or service being offered. This is done byidentifying the emotions of the user and creating anenvironment which would adapt to their disposition.There are various techniques that can be applied torecognise the emotions of the customer: Speech Processing Facial Expression Motor Behavioural Patterns Body gestures and movements BiosignalsA well designed web site shows that the company isdedicated to providing a secure and comfortable onlineshopping environment. Many customers with internet accessmay go to the website of a company for further information.When a prospective customer visits a website, the companyhas a limited amount of time to make a first “virtualimpression”. A poorly designed website may lead to the lossof customers. Many customers buy emotionally, therefore aweb design that generates positive emotions creates anenvironment where a customer is made to feel safe and wellinformed about the products or services being offered. Whena customer is confused by what is being displayed on the webpage, or does not want to deal with a company that’s notprofessional in its design, they would leave. Therefore, aneCommerce design should incorporate the necessary designelements of colour, style, text formatting and appropriate useof graphics and images. Depending on the type of product orservices emotional elements such as music, imitation of facialexpressions and flashes of pleasant images may be used topersuade the user and capture their attention.III. MATLAB-BASED CONTROL STRUCTURE OFEMOTION-ORIENTED ECOMMERCE SYSTEMSA model of emotion should identify events and objectsinvolved in the interaction process in an eCommerceenvironment. Emotion models would allow the computer toexpress emotions at the appropriate time. Appraisal theorieshave influenced the development of computational models ofemotion. Fundamentally, our appraisal of a situation causes anemotional or affective response. Emotion energies prepare theindividual to respond and have at least four different aspects –feelings, actions, physiological arousal, and motivationalprogrammes [25]. The importance of appraisal to emotions(primary, secondary, reappraisal) was articulated by Lazarus[26] and later elaborated by Smith and Lazarus [27] whocategorized six appraisal components related to primary andsecondary appraisals. These categories fall within the primaryand secondary appraisals and include motivationalcongruency (evaluation of goals), motivational relevance(commitment), accountability (assignment of responsibility ofblame and praise), problem-coping potentiality (resolvability),emotional-focused potentiality (emotional management ofsituation), and future expectancy (changeability of situation).Figure 2 - Model of intelligent emotion-oriented eCommerce systemISBN: 978-988-17012-9-9ISSN: 2078-0958 (Print); ISSN: 2078-0966 (Online)WCE 2010

Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering 2010 Vol IWCE 2010, June 30 - July 2, 2010, London, U.K.A model for simulation of intelligent emotion-orientedeCommerce systems following the basic control structureshown in Fig. 2 is proposed. The targets identify what thesystem should accomplish. The inputs refer to the designelements required for the design of an emotion-orientedeCommerce System. The customer would interact with thesystem through a designed interface. The outputs will affectthe eCommerce customer and the decision which is made.There is also the opportunity to identify and collect thenecessary bio-physiological data produced by the customer.Positive feedback, may lead to the eventual purchasing of aproduct, whilst negative feedback will lead to productevaluation and system design modification. The decisionmade by the customer, will establish if further emphasis needto be placed on the inputs. In addition, designing such anenvironment must take into consideration the disturbanceswhich may affect the purchasing decision of the customer andthe creation of a good mood [1].SIMULINK was used to create the model for simulation ofthe emotion-oriented eCommerce System. The SIMULINKcontrol diagram shown in Fig. 3 is made up of six (6)subsystem blocks. These blocks individually carry theelements and processes needed to carry out the simulation.The eCommerce system block identifies the inputs which arethe design elements as shown in Fig. 2. The right combinationof design elements would produce the interface the customerwould use to interact with the system. In the Customer block,during the interaction with the system the emotion of thecustomer would be recognized. The Emotion Model block isanother subsystem which presents the selected OCC model(Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988) [4]. The emotion modelidentifies the basic emotions the customer may experiencewhile in an eCommerce environment. The customer’semotion would be classified as either a positive or negativeemotion.However, there are a number of internal and externaldisturbances that may occur during a user’s experience.Internal disturbances relates to those that are already presentin such an environment, for example speed of the computer,malfunctioning software or lack of technical technique of theuser. Internal disturbances can change the initial good moodof the customer to a frustrating mood. The emotion or moodthat is felt by the user before entering an eCommerceenvironment is usually set by external factors. Stressfulenvironments that are created by external factors such asdemanding job, hectic family life or even a noisy alarm, willaffect the initial mood of the user. The user would produce anemotion of frustration which the eCommerce environmentmust then try to change.The Decision Criteria block accepts the positive ornegative emotion input. The type of emotion would affect thepurchase decision of the customer which is the eventuallyoutput of this block. If a favourable purchase decision is madethe Web Developer block would know that the design hassatisfied its intended targets of creating and maintaining aFigure 3 - MATLAB-based Control Structure for Emotion-Oriented eCommerce SystemsISBN: 978-988-17012-9-9ISSN: 2078-0958 (Print); ISSN: 2078-0966 (Online)WCE 2010

Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering 2010 Vol IWCE 2010, June 30 - July 2, 2010, London, U.K.good emotion and encouraging a purchasing decision. If anon-purchase decision was made, there should be a systemand design evaluation.[5][6]IV. CONCLUSIONSThe aim of any eCommerce web developer should be tocreate an environment that would ultimately lead to thecustomer purchasing a product or service. The rightcombination of design elements should convince the customerthat they must purchase the product or service being offered.This is done by identifying the emotions of the user andcreating an environment which would adapt and appropriatelyrespond to their emotional state.Many recent researchers [8],[9],[10] have incorporated theuser’s emotional nature as one of the key factors that canbalance and broaden the development of human-computerinteraction. The research presented in this paper forms part ofthat emotional approach to design interfaces that can improvethe quality of communication between the computer and user.Emotion plays an important role in the interaction process.In this study, we are investigating the elements that areinvolved in designing a customer interface for eCommercesystems that will evoke target emotions in the customer. Thefocus is on how design factors affects the transition from anegative emotion to a positive emotion. A positive emotionincreases the probability of a customer wanting to purchase aproduct.The design of customer interfaces that provide apleasurable and comfortable shopping environment is animportant research issue in eCommerce. An interactive onlineenvironment offers more opportunities to influencecustomers’ emotions and decision making as oppose totraditional advertising or marketing techniques.The components of a control structure for the design of anemotion-oriented eCommerce system were defined.ASIMULINK model for simulation of an emotion-orientedeCommerce system was discussed. Future developmentswould lead to more detailed blocks in the SIMULINK modeland different parameter testing would occur before the realdevelopment and application of the system.By commanding the science of persuasion and effectivelyrecognising and appropriately responding to the emotions ofthe customer, we can therefore scientifically influencecustomers’ online ][18][19][20][21][22]REFERENCES[1][2][3][4]S. Leon, A. Nikov, Intelligent Emotion-Oriented eCommerce Systems,in Proc. 9th WSEAS International Conference on Artificial Intelligence,Knowledge Engineering and Data Bases, 2010, pp. 202-207.R. Tilson , J. Dong, S. Martin , E. 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Emotion-Oriented eCommerce Systems Simone Leon, Alexander Nikov, Derek Chadee 1Abstract—There are various design factors that affect the customer's emotions in an eCommerce environment. A control diagram identifying the major elements and processes involved in an emotion-oriented eCommerce system has been created. The