Predicting the use of smartphone-based Augmented Reality (AR): Does telepresence really help?

The purpose of this study was to determine what predicts the use of smartphone-based Augmented Reality (AR). The study proposes two models to determine whether telepresence can substitute for usefulness and whether both usefulness in the revised technology acceptance model and telepresence in the telepresence mediation hypothesis model can mediate the relationship among three types of AR quality and the intention to reuse AR. Two models were tested with 134 undergraduates who experienced the smartphone-based AR application OVJET. Two competing models demonstrate that all hypothesized paths in the revised technology acceptance model and the telepresence mediation hypothesis model are significant except for one path from service quality to telepresence. A path difference test shows that three pairs of paths (system quality → usefulness vs. system quality → telepresence; service quality → usefulness vs. service quality → telepresence; and usefulness → AR reuse intention vs. telepresence → AR reuse intention) are significantly different, while one pair of the paths (i.e., information system → elepresence vs. information quality → usefulness) is not. In addition, usefulness performs both partial and complete mediating roles, while telepresence has only a complete mediation effect.