Age-Related Differences in Preferences for Using Voice Assistants

In the past few years, voice assistants have become broadly available in different forms of presentation and devices – not only as a personal assistant within smartphones but as smart speakers, within TV sets or as part of an in-car infotainment system. Furthermore, we live in an ageing society and considering elderly people as users of voice assistants gains more relevance driven by both trends. The goal of this study is to identify the specific age-related preferences of older people when using a conversational user interface in form of a voice assistant. We conducted a survey based on 26 elderly-related communication strategies among participants of different age. The participants had to evaluate the strategies according to their own preferences for using voice assistants. As a result, we identified 11 preferences specific to older users. Surprisingly, most of the communication strategies, when applied to voice assistants, seem to be relevant for users of all ages, and a few of the communication strategies do not apply when used in voice assistants. The preferences specific to older people help to develop new guidelines for voice user interfaces or conversational user interfaces in general. They do not automatically lead to those guidelines but provide a foundation to derive requirements, develop guidelines and evaluate those guidelines by means of user-based usability tests.