Design and evaluation of a smart home voice interface for the elderly: acceptability and objection aspects

Abstract

Smart homes equipped with ambient intelligence technology constitute a promising direction to enable the growing number of elderly to continue to live in their own homes as long as possible. However, this calls for technological solutions that suit their specific needs and capabilities. The SWEET-HOME project aims at developing a new user friendly technology for home automation based on voice command. This paper reports a user evaluation assessing the acceptance and fear of this new technology. 8 healthy persons between 71 and 88 years old, 7 relatives (child, grandchild or friend) and 3 professional carers participated in a user evaluation. During about 45 minutes, the persons were questioned in co-discovery in the DOMUS smart home alternating between interview and wizard of Oz periods followed by a debriefing. The experience aimed at testing four important aspects of the project: voice command, communication with the outside world, domotics system interrupting a person's activity, and electronic agenda. Voice interface appeared to have a great potential to ease daily living for elderly and frail persons and would be better accepted than more intrusive solutions. By considering still healthy and independent elderly people in the user evaluation, an interesting finding that came up is their overall acceptance provided the system does not drive them to a lazy lifestyle by taking control of everything. This particular fear really needs to be This work is supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche

A Review of Contemporary Work on the Ethics of Ambient Assisted Living Technologies for People with Dementia

“…For instance, blinking LEDs or vibrating sounds (van Hoof et al, 2011), a screw head looking like a button (O'Neill, Mason, et al, 2011), or an amount of newly installed cables (van Hoof et al, 2011) can cause confusion or frustration and can also have a major impact on the overall acceptance of the technology for the user. PwDs will also have to learn to cope with AAL technologies, when employing these assistive tools (Portet et al, 2011). A further way of enhancing the acceptability of a system for the user is by the provision of sufficient customisation, adaptation possibilities or high quality products (Abascal and Azevedo, 2007;Francis et al, 2009).…”

“…The term 'pervasive' refers (in the literature) to information and communication technologies (ICT) that are available "everywhere, for everyone, at all times" (Duquenoy and Whitehouse, 2006, p. 293). 'Ubiquitous' -the term introduced originally by Weiser (Portet et al, 2011) -covers the disappearance-into-background of the technology in an invisible, interconnected and non-intrusive way (Duquenoy and Whitehouse, 2006;Duquenoy, 2004). This pervasive, ubiquitous and non-intrusive nature is often also called 'calm computing' (Spiekermann and Pallas, 2006;Wallace et al, 2010).…”

“…There is a risk that users might find the technologies obtrusive (Portet et al, 2011). During trials, it has been observed that some persons with physical or mild cognitive impairment prefer using voice commands to touchscreen control of the devices (Portet et al, 2011), while others found the touchscreen control equally beneficial (Wallace et al, 2010).…”

“…There is a risk that users might find the technologies obtrusive (Portet et al, 2011). During trials, it has been observed that some persons with physical or mild cognitive impairment prefer using voice commands to touchscreen control of the devices (Portet et al, 2011), while others found the touchscreen control equally beneficial (Wallace et al, 2010). In a discussion of the use of robots, Decker (2012) emphasises that although it is recommended that a veto function should exist to allow users to stop the robots' actions, this view has been challenged where persons with cognitive impairment are concerned.…”

“…However, certain authors are sceptical whether the actual autonomy of the PwD is really increased through AAL technologies. Enhanced dependence on ICT might result in greater inactivity, promoting a lazy lifestyle instead of a true and desirable independence (Portet et al, 2011;Maguire et al, 2011). Moreover, dependence on technology requires us to put a certain amount of trust (Kosta, Pitkanen, et al, 2008;Kosta, Pitkänen, et al, 2010) and confidence in these systems, despite potential problems e.g.…”