Online Social Shopping: The Functions and Symbols of Design Artifacts

We report the results from a study investigating online shoppers' perceptions and evaluations of online social shopping design artifacts. To do so, we use the framework developed by Markus and Silver (2008) for studying information technology artifacts and their effects. Hence, we examine the functional affordances, i.e., the potential uses, and the symbolic expressions, i.e, the underlying message guiding use, of a set of four artifacts that shopper-generated content .1) lists of (favorite) products from shoppers, 2) lists of online shopping friends, 3) product reviews, and 4) shoppers' profiles. The results from a survey of online shopper are preliminary but promising. They show that recreational and non-recreational shoppers perceive different potential uses and underlying messages in the artifacts, and that the nature of these perceptions (utilitarian vs hedonic) are related to shoppers' assessment of the artifacts' utilitarian and hedonic value.