Abstract
Older adults often have problems and difficulties with adopting technologies but the popularity of technology usage among older adults had increased significantly in recent years. Separately, Speech-Based Intelligent Personal Assistants (sIPA) or Voice Assistants (VA) have shown formidable promise in the successful aging and well-being of older adults. An in-depth learnability assessment of sIPAs’ for the elderly will provide practitioners in this domain to formulate new research outputs and studies to counter learnability issues incurred by older adults. The aim of this paper is to investigate the sIPA learnability issues from an older adult’s perspective. The research provides two separate studies to assess the learnability issues that older adults face while adopting sIPA. With prior Institutional Review Board’s (IRB) approval, Study 1 demonstrates Usability Scale Studies by utilizing System Usability Scale (SUS) and reported quantitative SUS value with comprehensive discussion. Study 2 provides an Interview Study with older adults where the goal was to investigate how older adults learn to use and adopt sIPAs’ in their lives through a qualitative approach. Both Study 1 and Study 2 concluded older adults have learnability issues regarding the adoption of sIPAs’ in their daily life. The finding concluded an average SUS score of 62.5. With a minimum SUS value being 35 and a maximum SUS value of 92.5 thus reaffirming that while some did find using sIPA easy, several others faced severe difficulties. The qualitative study concluded that older adults usually take aid from peers, family members, and the internet to tackle learnability issues thus suggesting their eagerness to learn and accept new technology for daily use. A comprehensive discussion was incorporated to validate and contrast preceding studies with our findings followed by pointing out the limitations of our work and future scopes of research which includes extended and prolonged longitudinal studies or through incorporating a larger sample size of a different demographic of a similar age group.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Adamopoulou, E., Moussiades, L.: An overview of chatbot technology. In: Maglogiannis, I., Iliadis, L., Pimenidis, E. (eds.) AIAI 2020. IAICT, vol. 584, pp. 373–383. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49186-4_31
Arnold, A., Kolody, S., Comeau, A., Miguel Cruz, A.: What does the literature say about the use of personal voice assistants in older adults? a scoping review. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, pp. 1–12 (2022)
Barros, T.C.G.M., Seabra, R.D.: Usability assessment of google assistant and siri virtual assistants focusing on elderly users. In: Latifi, S. (ed.) 17th International Conference on Information Technology–New Generations (ITNG 2020). AISC, vol. 1134, pp. 653–657. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43020-7_88
Bingham, A.J., Witkowsky, P.: Deductive and inductive approaches to qualitative data analysis, chap. 8, pp. 133–146. Sage Publications, California, USA (2021)
Braun, V., Clarke, V.: Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qual. Res. Psychol. 3(2), 77–101 (2006)
Brewer, R., Pierce, C., Upadhyay, P., Park, L.: An empirical study of older adult’s voice assistant use for health information seeking. ACM Trans. Interact. Intell. Syst. (TiiS) 12(2), 1–32 (2022)
Burck, C.: Comparing qualitative research methodologies for systemic research: the use of grounded theory, discourse analysis and narrative analysis. J. Fam. Ther. 27(3), 237–262 (2005)
Chaudhry, B., Dasgupta, D., Mohamed, M., Chawla, N.: Teaching tablet technology to older adults. In: Stephanidis, C., et al. (eds.) HCII 2021. LNCS, vol. 13096, pp. 168–182. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90328-2_11
Chen, C., et al.: Understanding barriers and design opportunities to improve healthcare and qol for older adults through voice assistants. In: The 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 1–16 (2021)
Dequanter, S., et al.: Determinants of technology adoption and continued use among cognitively impaired older adults: a qualitative study. BMC Geriatr. 22(1), 1–16 (2022)
Dutsinma, F.L.I., Pal, D., Funilkul, S., Chan, J.H.: A systematic review of voice assistant usability: an iso 9241–11 approach. SN Comput. Sci. 3(4), 267 (2022)
Faverio, M.: Share of those 65 and older who are tech users has grown in the past decade. Pew Research Center 13 (2022)
Fereday, J., Muir-Cochrane, E.: Demonstrating rigor using thematic analysis: A hybrid approach of inductive and deductive coding and theme development. Int J Qual Methods 5(1), 80–92 (2006)
Harris, M.T., Blocker, K.A., Rogers, W.A.: Older adults and smart technology: facilitators and barriers to use. Frontiers in Computer Science, p. 41 (2022)
Hoy, M.B.: Alexa, siri, cortana, and more: an introduction to voice assistants. Med. Ref. Serv. Q. 37(1), 81–88 (2018)
Islam, M.U., Chaudhry, B.M.: A framework to enhance user experience of older adults with speech-based intelligent personal assistants. IEEE Access 11, 16683–16699 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3230151
Issa, L., Jusoh, S.: Usability evaluation on gamified e-learning platforms. In: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Data Science, E-Learning and Information Systems, pp. 1–6 (2019)
Jakob, D.: Voice controlled devices and older adults-a systematic literature review. In: Gao, Q., Zhou, J. (eds.) Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. Design, Interaction and Technology Acceptance. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 13330, pp. 175–200. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05581-2_14
Jebb, A.T., Ng, V., Tay, L.: A review of key likert scale development advances: 1995–2019. Front. Psychol. 12, 637547 (2021)
Jegundo, A.L., et al.: Usability evaluation of a virtual assistive companion. In: Rocha, Á., Adeli, H., Reis, L.P., Costanzo, S. (eds.) WorldCIST’19 2019. AISC, vol. 931, pp. 706–715. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16184-2_67
Joffe, H.: Thematic analysis. qualitative research methods in mental health and psychotherapy. Guide Students Practit. 1, 210–223 (2012)
Kadylak, T., Blocker, K.A., Kovac, C.E., Rogers, W.A.: Understanding the potential of digital home assistant devices for older adults through their initial perceptions and attitudes. Gerontechnology 21(1), 1–10 (2022)
Kim, S., Choudhury, A.: Exploring older adults’ perception and use of smart speaker-based voice assistants: a longitudinal study. Comput. Hum. Behav. 124, 106914 (2021)
Kim, S., et al.: Exploring how older adults use a smart speaker-based voice assistant in their first interactions: qualitative study. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth 9(1), e20427 (2021)
Koon, L.M., McGlynn, S.A., Blocker, K.A., Rogers, W.A.: Perceptions of digital assistants from early adopters aged 55+. Ergon. Design 28(1), 16–23 (2020)
Lewis, J.R.: The system usability scale: past, present, and future. Int. J. Human-Comput. Interact. 34(7), 577–590 (2018)
Li, Q., Luximon, Y.: Older adults and digital technology: a study of user perception and usage behavior. In: Goonetilleke, R., Karwowski, W. (eds.) Advances in Physical Ergonomics and Human Factors. AISC, vol. 489, pp. 155–163. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41694-6_16
Liang, X., et al.: Evaluating voice-assistant commands for dementia detection. Comput. Speech Lang. 72, 101297 (2022)
Liu, H., Wang, N.: Research on the present situation of professional identity of young university teachers based on the kmo sample suitability test and Bartlett spherical test. In: 2021 2nd International Conference on Big Data and Informatization Education (ICBDIE), pp. 366–369. IEEE (2021)
Mariano, J., et al.: Too old for technology? stereotype threat and technology use by older adults. Behav. Inf. Technol. 41(7), 1503–1514 (2022)
Mather, M., Jacobsen, L.A., Pollard, K.M.: Aging in the United States. Population Reference Bureau (2015)
Maxwell, J.A., et al.: Designing a qualitative study, vol. 2. The SAGE Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods (2008)
Miraz, M.H., Ali, M., Excell, P.S.: Adaptive user interfaces and universal usability through plasticity of user interface design. Comput. Sci. Rev. 40, 100363 (2021)
Mishra, A., Shukla, A., Sharma, S.K.: Psychological determinants of users’ adoption and word-of-mouth recommendations of smart voice assistants. Int. J. Inf. Manage. 67, 102413 (2022)
O’Brien, K., Liggett, A., Ramirez-Zohfeld, V., Sunkara, P., Lindquist, L.A.: Voice-controlled intelligent personal assistants to support aging in place. J. Am. Geriatr. Soc. 68(1), 176–179 (2020)
Poretski, L., Tang, A.: Press a to jump: Design strategies for video game learnability. In: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–26 (2022)
Pradhan, A., Lazar, A., Findlater, L.: Use of intelligent voice assistants by older adults with low technology use. ACM Trans. Comput.-Human Interact. (TOCHI) 27(4), 1–27 (2020)
Sayago, S., Neves, B.B., Cowan, B.R.: Voice assistants and older people: some open issues. In: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces, pp. 1–3 (2019)
Schlomann, A., et al.: Potential and pitfalls of digital voice assistants in older adults with and without intellectual disabilities: Relevance of participatory design elements and ecologically valid field studies. Front. Psychol. 12, 684012 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.684012. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.684012
Song, Y., Yang, Y., Cheng, P.: The investigation of adoption of voice-user interface (vui) in smart home systems among Chinese older adults. Sensors 22(4), 1614 (2022)
Stiles-Shields, C., Montague, E., Lattie, E.G., Schueller, S.M., Kwasny, M.J., Mohr, D.C., et al.: Exploring user learnability and learning performance in an app for depression: usability study. JMIR Hum. Factors 4(3), e7951 (2017)
Trajkova, M., Martin-Hammond, A.: “Alexa is a toy”: exploring older adults’ reasons for using, limiting, and abandoning echo. In: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–13 (2020)
Werner, L., Huang, G., Pitts, B.J.: Smart speech systems: a focus group study on older adult user and non-user perceptions of speech interfaces. Int. J. Human-Comput. Interact. 39, 1–13 (2022)
Williams, B., Onsman, A., Brown, T.: Exploratory factor analysis: a five-step guide for novices. Australasian J. Paramed. 8, 1–13 (2010)
Yu, J.E., Parde, N., Chattopadhyay, D.: “where is history”: toward designing a voice assistant to help older adults locate interface features quickly (2023)
Zaman, S.B., Khan, R.K., Evans, R.G., Thrift, A.G., Maddison, R., Islam, S.M.S.: Exploring barriers to and enablers of the adoption of information and communication technology for the care of older adults with chronic diseases: scoping review. JMIR aging 5(1), e25251 (2022)
Zhong, R., Ma, M.: Effects of communication style, anthropomorphic setting and individual differences on older adults using voice assistants in a health context. BMC Geriatr. 22(1), 751 (2022)
Zhong, R., Ma, M., Zhou, Y., Lin, Q., Li, L., Zhang, N.: User acceptance of smart home voice assistant: a comparison among younger, middle-aged, and older adults. In: Universal Access in the Information Society, pp. 1–18 (2022)
Zwakman, D.S., Pal, D., Arpnikanondt, C.: Usability evaluation of artificial intelligence-based voice assistants: The case of amazon Alexa. SN Comput. Sci. 2, 1–16 (2021)
Zwakman, D.S., Pal, D., Triyason, T., Vanijja, V.: Usability of voice-based intelligent personal assistants. In: 2020 International Conference on Information and Communication Technology Convergence (ICTC), pp. 652–657. IEEE (2020)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Islam, M.U., Chaudhry, B.M. (2023). Learnability Assessment of Speech-Based Intelligent Personal Assistants by Older Adults. In: Gao, Q., Zhou, J. (eds) Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. HCII 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14042. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34866-2_24
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34866-2_24
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-34865-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-34866-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)