Older adults and the usability of speech interaction (original) (raw)

Older Adults' Perception and Use of Voice User Interfaces

Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction, 2019

Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) are quickly becoming ubiquitous. The natural language interface of VUIs may be more usable for some groups of users, such as those who may face challenges using physical input methods including older adults and people living with a disability. This study explores research on the use of VUIs by one such group, older adults. We conducted a systematic literature review of research published in the Association of Computing Machinery Digital Library that addresses perception and use of VUIs by older adults. We identified an emerging body of research examining older adults' use and perceptions of VUIs. This research revealed several potential benefits of voice interaction for older adults while also highlighting how the novelty of the technology may be a barrier to adoption. We conclude with a call for further HCI research in this area. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Natural language interfaces; HCI design and evaluation methods; • General and reference → Surveys and overviews.

Exploration of Voice User Interfaces for Older Adults—A Pilot Study to Address Progressive Vision Loss

Digital Interaction and Machine Intelligence, 2021

Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) owing to recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP), are becoming increasingly intuitive and functional. They are especially promising for older adults, also with special needs, as VUIs remove some barriers related to access to Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions. In this pilot study we examine interdisciplinary opportunities in the area of VUIs as assistive technologies, based on an exploratory study with older adults, and a follow-up in-depth pilot study with two participants regarding the needs of people who are gradually losing their sight at a later age.

Older Adults and Voice Interaction

Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

In this paper we present the results of an exploratory study examining the potential of voice assistants (VA) for some groups of older adults in the context of Smart Home Technology (SHT). To research the aspect of older adults' interaction with voice user interfaces (VUI) we organized two workshops Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s).

Evaluating a Spoken Language Interface of a Multimodal Interactive Guidance System for Elderly Persons

Proceedings of the International Conference on Health Informatics, 2012

This paper presents a multimodal interactive guidance system for elderly persons for the use in navigating in hospital environments. We used a unified modelling method combining the conventional recursive transition network based approach and agent-based dialogue theory to support the development of the central dialogue management component. Then we studied and specified a list of guidelines addressing the needs of designing and implementing multimodal interface for elderly persons. As an important step towards developing an effective, efficient and elderly-friendly multimodal interaction, the spoken language interface of the current system was evaluated by an elaborated experiment with sixteen elderly persons. The results of the experimental study are overall positive and provide evidence for our proposed guidelines, approaches and frameworks on interactive system development while advising further improvements.

Spoken Conversational Agents for Older Adults: Who Are the Stakeholders and What Do They Expect?

2021

In this paper we discuss our road map to design a Dutch spoken conversational agent that helps older adults with self-management of their well-being. We conducted three usability studies with our conversational agent, each time after discussing it with different stakeholders. We discuss the challenges incorporating each stakeholder’s wishes and needs whilst iteratively designing our agent.

Older User-Computer Interaction on the Internet: How Conversational Agents Can Help

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

Using a qualitative study employing a role-playing approach with human agents, this study identifies the potential roles of conversational agents in enhancing older users' computer interactions on the Internet in e-commerce environments. Twenty-five participants aged 65 or older performed a given shopping task with a human agent playing the role of a conversational agent. The activity computer screens were video-recorded and the participant-agent conversations were audio-recorded. Through navigation path analysis as well as content analysis of the conversations, three major issues hindering older users' Internet interaction are identified: (1) a lack of prior computer knowledge, (2) a failure to locate information or buttons, and (3) confusions related to meanings of information. The navigation path analysis also suggests potential ways conversational agents may assist older users to optimize their search strategies. Implications and suggestions for future studies are discussed.

Conversational Agents for the Elderly, the Guardian Platform

Anais do XI Computer on the Beach - COTB '20, 2020

With increasing of life expectancy innovative solutions that ensurewell-being of the seniors become most needed. In this context, inorder to deny the main difficulties reported by the senior public withthe use of mobile devices, we propose a technology entirely basedon voice interactions and we name this project of Guardian. Theessence of the project is to provide, through a mobile application, aplatform with a set of intelligent agents focused on the well-beingof the older adults. In this work the mains objectives to analyze andevaluate the usability of the Guardian and the cultural impacts ofthe technology. For the data collection, video recordings were used,a questionnaire that identifies the socio-technological profile of theresearch participants and the system usability scale (SUS).