Virtual Assistant to Improve Self-care of Older People with Type 2 Diabetes: First Prototype

A Question of Access: Exploring the Perceived Benefits and Barriers of Intelligent Voice Assistants for Improving Access to Consumer Health Resources Among Low-Income Older Adults

“…While the usefulness of voice for supporting older adults' interactions with technology is not always apparent (Luria et al, 2017;Portet et al, 2013;Vacher et al, n.d.), older adults often appreciate the simplified interactions of voice-controlled devices, especially among those with limited technical experience (Wulf et al, 2014). Researchers are increasingly exploring IVAs as tools to support aging (Pradhan et al, 2018(Pradhan et al, , 2019Reis et al, 2018;Trajkova & Martin-Hammond, 2020), including supporting older adults' healthcare needs (Buinhas et al, 2019;O'Brien et al, 2020;Sanders & Martin-Hammond, 2019). There are genuine concerns that commercial IVAs may not yet be ready to support consumers' health information needs (Bickmore et al, 2018) or the complexities of the healthcare system (Sezgin et al, 2020).…”

“…However, despite concerns, we see increased interest in voice technologies (Pew Research Center, n.d.) and their use in healthcare (Laranjo et al, 2018;Sezgin et al, 2020) with a recent focus on older adults. Buinhas et al (2019), for example, examined prototypes to assist older adults in managing diabetes. Several other researchers have also begun to study the future of IVAs to support older adults' health and wellness needs (Buinhas et al, 2019;O'Brien et al, 2020;Sanders & Martin-Hammond, 2019).…”

“…There has been growing interest in using intelligent voice assistants (IVAs), such as Amazon Echo and Google Home, to support older adults (Buinhas et al, 2019;Pradhan et al, 2019;Reis et al, 2018;Sanders & Martin-Hammond, 2019;Sayago et al, 2019;Trajkova & Martin-Hammond, 2020) at home for health-related and non-health-related tasks. IVAs (e.g., smart speakers) use "conversational-like" interactions to allow users to perform tasks using their voice or text and can be less expensive than other computing devices.…”

"Alexa is a Toy": Exploring Older Adults' Reasons for Using, Limiting, and Abandoning Echo

“…In the past few years, IVA adoption has grown [36], and so has curiosity in how people are using these devices. Studies examining smart speakers use in the home [28,39,43] as well as potential future uses of smart speakers [8,27,41] have helped researchers to identify what users perceive as benefits and barriers to smart speaker adoption. There has also been growing interest in how people with disabilities [1,39] use smart speakers and emerging interest in smart speaker use among older adults [8,40].…”

“…Studies examining smart speakers use in the home [28,39,43] as well as potential future uses of smart speakers [8,27,41] have helped researchers to identify what users perceive as benefits and barriers to smart speaker adoption. There has also been growing interest in how people with disabilities [1,39] use smart speakers and emerging interest in smart speaker use among older adults [8,40]. These studies have helped to advance knowledge of use, but also awareness of open IVA design challenges and potential future uses.…”