AR-HITOKE: visualizing popularity of brick and mortar shops to support purchase decisions

We propose a shopping support system (AR-HITOKE) that visualizes the popularity of brick and mortar shops by aggregating online and offline information using augmented reality technology that can be understood intuitively. In the proposed method, 3D-animated human-shaped icons in queues and user comments are overlaid above a shop's location on a physical map. Popularity is expressed visually by adjusting the queues length depending on offline sales data. We also visualize user comments related to each shop that are extracted from online reviews using our sentiment analysis framework. The proposed method offers new evaluation information for decision making in a physical environment and new online shopping experiences. Through exhibition of the proposed system at an actual event, we found that users are able to recognize the popularity of shops intuitively.