Chi Nai-Ching, Sparks Olivia, Lin Shih-Yin, Lazar Amanda, Thompson Hilaire J, Demiris George
University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Geriatr Nurs. 2017 Nov-Dec;38(6):542-547. doi: 10.1016/j.gerinurse.2017.04.002. Epub 2017 May 4.
Social isolation in older adults is a major public health concern. An embodied conversational agent (ECA) has the potential to enhance older adults' social interaction. However, little is known about older adults' experience with an ECA. In this paper, we conducted a pilot study to examine the perceived acceptance and utility of a tablet-based conversational agent in the form of an avatar (termed "digital pet") for older adults. We performed secondary analysis of data collected from a study that employed the use of a digital pet in ten older adults' homes for three months. Most of the participants enjoyed the companionship, entertainment, reminders, and instant assistance from the digital pet. However, participants identified limited conversational ability and technical issues as system challenges. Privacy, dependence, and cost were major concerns. Future applications should maximize the agent's conversational ability and the system's overall usability. Our results can inform future designs of conversational agents for older adults, which need to include older adults as system co-designers to maximize usability and acceptance.
老年人的社会隔离是一个重大的公共卫生问题。具身对话代理（ECA）有潜力增强老年人的社交互动。然而，对于老年人使用ECA的体验却知之甚少。在本文中，我们进行了一项试点研究，以检验一种以虚拟形象（称为“数字宠物”）形式存在的基于平板电脑的对话代理对老年人的可接受性和实用性。我们对一项研究收集的数据进行了二次分析，该研究在十位老年人的家中使用数字宠物长达三个月。大多数参与者都喜欢数字宠物带来的陪伴、娱乐、提醒和即时帮助。然而，参与者指出对话能力有限和技术问题是系统面临的挑战。隐私、依赖性和成本是主要担忧。未来的应用应该最大限度地提高代理的对话能力和系统的整体可用性。我们的研究结果可为未来针对老年人的对话代理设计提供参考，这类设计需要让老年人作为系统共同设计者，以最大限度地提高可用性和可接受性。
