Investigating the acceptance of Augmented Reality for raising awareness on potentially harmful ingredients present in consumable products

Recently, it was found that non-communicable diseases are responsible for 71% of death around the world. Statistics also indicates that the situation in Mauritius is equally alarming. Several studies have revealed that ingredients such as sodium phosphate, BHA/BHT and artificial colours used in certain consumable products are direct risk factors of NCDs. The consumption of such products is constantly increasing as many people are not aware of the effects that these ingredients can have on their health. There is therefore a need to improve awareness of consumers. As such in this paper, an investigation on how a new technology like Augmented Reality could be used of to raise awareness about potentially harmful ingredients was done. An AR-based mobile application called ProdiScan was developed to augment information related to ingredients used in consumable products. The application was evaluated to assess four aspects of the TAM model namely, `Perceived Ease of Use', `Perceived Usefulness', `Attitude towards Using' and `Intention to Use'. For all the four constructs investigated, positive results were obtained from which it can be deduced that ProdiScan can be a useful tool for improving the awareness of consumers and thus helping them stay healthier.