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Making it easier for older people to talk to smart homes: the effect of early help prompts

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Abstract

It is well known that help prompts shape how users talk to spoken dialogue systems. This study investigated the effect of help prompt placement on older users’ interaction with a smart home interface. In the dynamic help condition, help was only given in response to system errors; in the inherent help condition, it was also given at the start of each task. Fifteen older and sixteen younger users interacted with a smart home system using two different scenarios. Each scenario consisted of several tasks. The linguistic style users employed to communicate with the system (interaction style) was measured using the ratio of commands to the overall utterance length (keyword ratio) and the percentage of content words in the user’s utterance that could be understood by the system (shared vocabulary). While the timing of help prompts did not affect the interaction style of younger users, it was early task-specific help supported older users in adapting their interaction style to the system’s capabilities. Well-placed help prompts can significantly increase the usability of spoken dialogue systems for older people.

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Notes

  1. Although the system can also parse inflected forms, many of the verbs that are relevant commands are particle verbs, such as “einschalten” (to turn on). When particle verbs are inflected, the particle typically occurs after the object. Example: “Inspire, schalte die Lampe an” (“Inspire, switch on the light"). This can make the resulting sentence difficult to parse.

  2. Four of the missing participants were not tested, two refused to be tested.

  3. http://trans.sourceforge.net.

  4. For a definition of “user turns”, see Sect. 3.7.

  5. In the following text, significance values of 0.001 or better are given as 0.00.

  6. Quantile/quantile plots compare the observed distribution of variable values with the distribution that would be expected if the variable were normally distributed.

  7. For scenario-level correlations, we used the average Keyword Ratio and Shared Vocabulary for each speaker and scenario.

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Acknowledgments

This study was carried out within the project MeMo (Usability Workbench for Rapid Product Development) funded by Deutsche Telekom AG. The authors would like to thank the whole MeMo team for their support, in particular Marc Hümmer (formerly Fraunhofer FIT, Birlinghofen) and Thimios Dimopulos (formerly DAI-Labor, TU Berlin) for setting up and running the experiment. The MATCH project (Scottish Funding Council grant no. HR04016) funded Maria Wolters’ contribution as well as a two-week research visit to Edinburgh by Florian Gödde. Part of this study was presented at the University of Edinburgh Dialogue Systems Group. We thank the group members for their comments and Johanna Moore and David Milward for additional references. Last but not least we would like to thank our three anonymous reviewers for their detailed and insightful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Speech Technology Research, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB, Scotland, UK

    K. Maria Wolters

  2. Quality and Usability Lab, Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Berlin Institute of Technology, Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7, 10587, Berlin, Germany

    Klaus-Peter Engelbrecht, Florian Gödde, Sebastian Möller, Anja Naumann & Robert Schleicher

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  1. K. Maria Wolters
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  2. Klaus-Peter Engelbrecht
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Correspondence to K. Maria Wolters.

Appendix: Questionnaires

Appendix: Questionnaires

The questionnaires have been translated from German (original version given in brackets). The numbering refers to the original questionnaires.

Affinity to technology scale

  1. 1.

    Computers or software are not really my hobby. (“Computer und Software sind nicht gerade mein Hobby.”)

  2. 2.

    I often find unusual devices exciting and interesting. (“Ungewöhnliche Geräte finde ich oft spannend und interessant.”)

  3. 3.

    Technology has always fascinated me. (“Technik hat mich schon immer fasziniert.”)

  4. 4.

    I don’t care about computers. (“Computer sind mir gleichgültig.”)

  5. 5.

    Computers help organise my life. (“Computer helfen, mein Leben zu organisieren.”)

  6. 6.

    I am sceptical and critical towards technology. (“Ich stehe Technik skeptisch und kritisch gegenüber.”)

  7. 7.

    I really like to try out new gadgets. (“Ich probiere sehr gerne neue technische Geräte aus.”)

  8. 8.

    I consider speech control of home appliances to be useful. (“Ich halte eine Sprachsteuerung für Hausgeräte für sinnvoll.”)

  9. 9.

    I think it will be difficult to operate a home appliance by voice. (“Ich stelle es mir schwierig vor, ein Hausgerät über Sprache zu steuern.”)

  10. 10.

    I believe that it will be fun to control homes appliance by voice. (“Ich nehme an, dass die Sprachsteuerung eines Hausgerätes Spaß machen wird.”)

System evaluation questionnaire (interaction items)

  1. 6.1

    The interaction with the system was pleasant. (“Die Interaktion mit dem System war angenehm.”)

  2. 6.2

    I felt relaxed. (“Ich fühlte mich entspannt.”).

  3. 6.3

    A high level of concentration is required when using the system. (“Ich musste mich sehr auf die Interaktion mit dem System konzentrieren.”)

  4. 6.4

    The interaction was fun. (“Die Interaktion hat Spaß gemacht.”)

  5. 6.5

    Overall, I am satisfied with the system. (“Ich bin insgesamt mit dem System zufrieden.”)

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Wolters, K.M., Engelbrecht, KP., Gödde, F. et al. Making it easier for older people to talk to smart homes: the effect of early help prompts. Univ Access Inf Soc 9, 311–325 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-009-0184-x

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