Exploring Configurator Users’ Motivational Drivers for Digital Social Interaction

At a global level, the demand for online transactions is increasing. This is propelled by both the digital transformation paradigm and the COVID 19 pandemic. The research on Web infrastructure design recognizes the impact that social, behavioral, and human aspects have on online transactions in e-commerce, e-health, e-education, and e-work. As a result, social computing features are leading the Web with information and communication technologies that facilitate interactions among web users through socially enhanced online environments. It is crucial to research the social, behavioral, and human dimensions of web-mediated activities, especially when social activities are restricted only to an online environment. The present study focuses on the social dimension of the e-commerce of customizable products. This domain was selected because of the specificity of its product self-design process in terms of customers’ decision-making and their involvement in product value creation. This study aims to seek the extent that a set of customers’ motivational drivers rely on their need to interact with real persons during the technology-assisted process of products’ self-design. By adopting a user-centered perspective, the study considers 937 self-design experiences by 187 young adult users on a sample of 378 business-to-customers product configurators. The results should provide companies and software designers with insights about customers’ need for social presence during their product self-design experience so that they can fulfill this need by using social technology that provides positive experiences.