Designing Ethical and Inclusive Voice Assistants Through Co-creation with Older Adults

Abstract

Voice assistants are becoming increasingly significant in promoting active aging and digital skills to utilise these technologies fully. This study investigates the acceptance of standalone voice-only assistants among digitally competent older adults in Spain. Besides, it identifies features deemed significant by older adults, providing insights for designers of voice assistants. The research addresses three key questions: the impact of the co-creation process on technological acceptance, factors influencing adoption, and ethical considerations in developing voice-only assistants for older adults. The method employed was an exploratory mixed-methods design in an online co-creation process comprising three stages: an initial session for familiarisation, a game-based co-creation session utilising the Activity Design Cards Toolkit to extract primary requirements for prototype design considering ethics and inclusive values, and a final session to evaluate and refine the prototypes. Findings indicate that the co-creation process significantly enhances technology acceptance among older adults with high digital competence.