Abstract
Shoutup is a social commerce application that aims at bridging the gap between e- commerce and social media. As it stands today (the year 2020), shopping online and browsing social media are two very distinct activities. E-commerce has been made with efficiency in mind. It has been crafted to make sure users receive their purchases in record time and with customer experience in mind. Social networks have ta- ken a very different tangent. They have been crafted to be a lot of fun and very addictive. Traditionally, the user experience of both, e- commerce as well as social network are very distinct and unique. Shoutup hopes to merge these two concepts together. In a nutshell, it is a social media platform that allows users to tag the products they have and browse products tagged by other users. This greatly enhances the pre-purchase experience of products. The main assumption that this hinges on is the fact that today, customers want to expeirence a product before purchase. Historically, this was done by providing samples of the product that the user can experience before purchasing the actual product. Shoutup takes this approach to the virtual world. Just shy of physically holding and using a pro- duct, Shoutup offers the users a chance to experience a product before purchase. Additionally, as all the products are not hosted by Shoutup itself, it offers the users the opportunity to make standard rate commis- sion on products that they help sell on the platform. This opens up a new income stream for the users. This literally means that users can now actually be paid for posting content.
Interface & Interaction Modality
One of the key elements of Shoutup is the shoutup camera which provides users with the ability to interact with objects in the real world. Just point the camera at any product, barcode or qrcode and and Shoutup will detect the objects and provide the user with all the relevant information about the products found within. For future development, Shoutup will also have the ability to display information in Augmented Reality making the camera a more rounded experience. The backbone of Shoutup is the artificial intelligence that runs in the background to ensure that users receive accurate information regarding products they are searching for.
Technology
The screen design was achieved using Sketch and the prototype was created using Framer X and Framer Motion. User Experience: The application design was crafted with a ‘young’ and ‘fun’ experience in mind. This is pivotal in drawing users into the application and making the experience unique every time.
Research and Development Context
There is a wide scope for improvement of the basic concept of Shoutup! As stated earlier, a large ecosystem can be built on top of the initial system that greatly leverages the use of artificial intelligence in bringing the virtual world to life and making it interact with the physical world we live in.
