Age-appropriate Participatory Design of a Storytelling Voice Input in the Context of Historytelling

摘要

With the demographic change, the percentage of older adults steadily increases. At the same time, new information and communication technologies (ICT) emerge at an ever-increasing rate, making it imperative to consider older adults in the development process to achieve the best possible usability and acceptance for older adults. This paper describes the development of a storytelling input component in the context of Historytelling (HT), which provides a digital interactive platform for older adults to share life stories across generations, potentially improving their health and wellbeing. HT follows the HCD+ (Human Centered Design for Aging) approach, claiming that older adults should be integrated as co-designers throughout the development process. A total of 19 older adults (M=68 years old) participated in 3 studies to analyze, evaluate and design a storytelling voice input, investigating voice communication technology for conversational agents. They were successfully involved in the design process, with methods adjusted to accommodate specific user characteristics of older adults and substantially contributed to the further development of the HT project, exploring the two central research questions regarding the type of voice input suitable for older adults and the minimal requirements for a conversational agent.