Furniture Lab

The ARBAY project (www.arbay-projekt.de) launched in September 2018 and aims to bring the consultation and configuration of large, highly customizable goods—such as furniture—right into people’s living rooms.

We are pleased to announce that our planned “research living room” at Clausthal University of Technology has been completed. The goal was to set up a space that looks like a typical living room. This space will be used both to demonstrate the ARBAY system and to facilitate studies in the context of furniture consultation sessions. Since we cannot conduct our studies during the showroom’s opening hours at the furniture store, this is an excellent option for flexibly conducting studies within the ARBAY framework. The research living room is available to all project partners.

Two studies have already been conducted in the living room. These studies are currently being analyzed and documented.

As part of Mr. Gordon Brown’s (M.Sc.) master’s thesis, the living room was used to evaluate the impact of different forms of representation and avatar behavior. In this context, the avatars represented furniture consultants connected remotely to help customers visualize the products. The objective of the study is to determine the extent to which the avatar’s appearance and behavior influence the success of a consultation. Study participants used Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality glasses to view various virtual pieces of furniture. The consultant then conducted a remote consultation with them in which the customer was to purchase a couch. With the help of the augmented reality glasses, the virtual couch could be seamlessly displayed alongside the existing furniture.

The living room is currently being used as part of a student research project. The goal of the study is to evaluate the extent to which various tools can help a remote consultant provide better advice. The various tools are evaluated directly with consultants at the furniture store. To capture the customer’s perspective, we utilized the newly furnished research living room. This allows the consultant to view the customer in their home environment via their various tools and thus conduct the consultation. The consistent home environment allows for a direct comparison of the different tools. In this case, the “customer” also wears augmented reality glasses, through which the consultant is able to view the environment.

As soon as the results are available and have been published, they will also be made available on the ARBAY website. We at the ARBAY project look forward to conducting many more studies using the Research Living Room.