Understanding Barriers and Design Opportunities to Improve Healthcare and QOL for Older Adults through Voice Assistants
This work addresses the problem of improving healthcare and quality of life for older adults through voice assistants, but it is incremental as it focuses on identifying barriers rather than implementing solutions.
The study tackled the lack of understanding in designing voice-based Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) for older adults' healthcare and quality of life by interviewing 21 participants, identifying 12 barriers and highlighting key design challenges and opportunities.
Voice based Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) promise to improve healthcare management and Quality of Life (QOL) by introducing the paradigm of hands free and eye free interactions. However, there has been little understanding regarding the challenges for designing such systems for older adults, especially when it comes to healthcare related tasks. To tackle this, we consider the processes of care delivery and QOL enhancements for older adults as a collaborative task between patients and providers. By interviewing 16 older adults living independently or semi independently and 5 providers, we identified 12 barriers that older adults might encounter during daily routine and while managing health. We ultimately highlighted key design challenges and opportunities that might be introduced when integrating voice based IVAs into the life of older adults. Our work will benefit practitioners who study and attempt to create full fledged IVA powered smart devices to deliver better care and support an increased QOL for aging populations.