麻豆传媒

Above: 麻豆传媒 faculty members Daniel Brannon (left), Ph.D., and Moe Manshad (right), Ph.D.

It鈥檚 an easy habit to fall into. While watching TV or folding laundry, it鈥檚 almost second nature for many to pick up their phone, browse a retail site and before they know it, they鈥檝e clicked 鈥榩urchase鈥� multiple times. This became especially popular during the beginning of the pandemic when many were staying at home. Though online shopping is convenient, it can also be costly. 

鈥淧eople tend to overpay when they pay via mobile or online because it's kind of like a painless payment, you don鈥檛 have to pay with cash,鈥� said , Ph.D., assistant professor of Marketing in the at the University of Northern Colorado. 

Brannon has been exploring theories surrounding online shopping and payment apps, specifically seeing if there is a way to help people not dip into their savings so quickly. It turns out there is. 

Haptic Payment

Brannon and his college friend turned fellow 麻豆传媒 faculty member, , Ph.D., found a way to hinder overspending online, even if just by a little, through a 3-D printed vibration motor controller attached to a phone. 

 鈥淎ll mobile phones have vibrations that are used to deliver notifications to consumers, for example when you receive a like or comment on a social media post,鈥� said Manshad, assistant professor of Computer Information Systems for MCB. 鈥淲e wanted to see if receiving a similar vibration notification when you are in the act of paying for something with your mobile device could affect how consumers feel about their spending on these devices.鈥� 

In traditional, in-person shopping, consumers experience the physical aspect of standing in line or taking a form of payment out of their wallet, which research shows can lead to a sense of loss. Online shopping removes that, which is why the pair looked for a different way to bring out that emotion.  

鈥淲e wanted to see whether high or low haptic vibration intensity was most likely to elicit a sort of pain of payment,鈥� Brannon said. 

Through the experiment, the faculty members discovered haptic vibrations may work. Haptic technology uses vibrations and motors to simulate the feeling of touch. 

The first step was creating a device, which Manshad was able to do using a 3-D printer located in his office. He then developed a mobile app that connected to a microcontroller with a vibration motor and hooked that onto the back of a phone. 

鈥淥ne of the things that we worked on is developing the device that basically gives us control of the haptic part of the phone. Traditionally, on older phones, you don't have much control over the intensity of vibration, so we had to build a device,鈥� Manshad said. 

Using the device, the professors then sought out a sample of 160 undergraduate students to participate in the experiment. In the basement of MCB, a shopping experience was set up where each student chose from a shelf of various potato chips, used a mobile payment app to scan the QR code and then pressed 鈥榩urchase鈥� in the app. Upon pressing the purchase button, the students received either low-intensity, high-intensity, or no vibration feedback. They were then asked how much money they were willing to spend on a subsequent shopping trip. 

Above: Moe Manshad, Ph.D., explains how the app and vibration motor he created for the experiment works

Those who experienced a low-intensity vibration said they would spend less. 

鈥淭here鈥檚 a theory in psychology that low-frequency stimuli like low-frequency sounds can cause a sense of threat or danger,鈥� Brannon said. 鈥淚f you think about a scary movie a lot of times it鈥檚 that low, eerie sense that people get. It gives a sinister feeling.鈥� 

Manshad says high frequency tends to have the opposite effect. 

鈥淗igh intensity is more associated with excitement or positivity to some extent,鈥� Manshad said. 

Specifically, the research showed on a scale from $1-$100, the students who received a low-intensity vibration after pressing purchase were willing to spend an average of $41.37 on their next grocery trip compared to an average of $50.65 that students who experienced high-intensity vibrations said they were willing to spend. 

鈥淲hat we鈥檙e theorizing is that people who got the lower-intensity vibration tended to experience a bit more negative emotion, and subsequently they were less likely to spend,鈥� Brannon said. 

While the findings that could help consumers save a couple of dollars while online shopping excite Brannon and Manshad, they know similar future experiments can provide more bang to the buck for their 麻豆传媒 students. 

Student Involvement 

鈥�I was walking through the Monfort College of Business basement and saw a couple of professors setting up this cool experiment, and they asked if I wanted to participate in a five-minute survey,鈥� said Cara Quinn.  

Quinn, now in her fifth year at 麻豆传媒 was one of the students selected to participate in the mobile payment experiment. She was placed in the category of students who received no haptic vibration feedback after 'purchasing' a bag of chips on an iPhone.  

鈥淚t was great to see my professors working on an experiment and that they have their own research that they鈥檙e doing outside of teaching,鈥� Quinn said.  

As a Marketing major, Quinn has learned under Brannon frequently and has recently taken advantage of Manshad鈥檚 expertise picking up computer information systems (CIS) courses for her minor in Digital Marketing. She says though Marketing and CIS seem vastly different, she's learned the disciplines often overlap.  

鈥淭hey all relate to each other. Things I鈥檝e learned in CIS I can implement into my digital marketing, especially with coding,鈥� Quinn said.  

That is what Brannon and Manshad want to focus on moving forward. 

鈥淲hat we want to do is enable students to understand and create interactive systems or interfaces in some capacity. We try to showcase and apply a multi-experience that can apply to marketing, software engineering, computer information systems (CIS), accounting and beyond,鈥� Manshad said.   

Multiexperience Lab 

MCB already excels in offering a unique in-house software engineering program, but Manshad and Brannon want to take it a step further.  

鈥淲e want to bring in marketing students to research and hold focus groups and have CIS students learn about the business process behind the development,鈥� said Manshad. 

There are plans and funds available to expand research tools at MCB. For example, Manshad has already received three more 3-D printers for a total of five that students can use. With that, Brannon and Manshad are developing a Multiexperience (MX) Lab.

Above: One of five 3-D printers available for students to use inside the Monfort College of Business

鈥淲e're looking at starting up programs and courses within the university, or within the business school, that utilize the lab as part of the curriculum,鈥� Brannon said. 鈥淪tudents would have to learn basic programming, as in how to create interfaces for apps and how to do basic prototyping.鈥� 

The goal is to launch a one-or two-part class in the next one to two years. 

鈥淲ith the MX Lab, using it for teaching and getting research out, students won鈥檛 only be there for class but also to test technology,鈥� Brannon said. 

The lab will enhance students鈥� education at 麻豆传媒 supporting critical inquiry, discovery and creation, and provide career-ready experience. 

鈥淎t the end of the day, each student needs value from each class to put on their resume,鈥� Manshad said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e showing our students that we, as faculty, are up to date with industry standards. We know how to use the technology involved and we can teach them these tools so that they have experience when interviewing for a job.鈥� 

So, for example, if an employer asks Quinn if she has any experience in surveying a product, say an app that provides vibration when purchasing an item online, she鈥檒l be able to give a quick 鈥測es.鈥� 

Brannon and Manshad鈥檚 research is published in the Journal of Business Research in the article entitled   

- Written by Sydney Kern