Like My Aunt Dorothy: Effects of Conversational Styles on Perceptions, Acceptance and Metaphorical Descriptions of Voice Assistants during Later Adulthood

Little research has investigated the design of conversational styles of voice assistants (VA) for adults in their later adulthood with varying personalities. In this Wizard of Oz experiment, 34 middle-aged (50 to 64 years old) and 24 older adults (65 to 80 years old) participated in a user study at a simulated home, interacting with a VA using either formal or informal language. Older adults with higher agreeableness perceived VA as being more likable than middle-aged adults. Middle-aged adults showed similar technology acceptance toward the informal and formal VA, and older adults preferred using informal VA, especially those with low agreeableness. Further, while both middle-aged and older adults frequently anthropomorphized VAs by using human metaphors for them, older adults compared formal VA with professionals (e.g., librarians, teachers) and informal VA with their close ones (e.g., spouses, relatives). Overall, the conversational style showed differential effects on the perceptions of middleaged and older adults, suggesting personalized design implications. CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); HCI design and evaluation methods; User studies; Laboratory experiments; • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); Empirical studies in HCI; • Social and professional topics → User characteristics; Age; Seniors