Finding a Home for Voice Assistants: A Domestication Calculus Across Three Years and Thirty Households

Paper Title

Finding a Home for Voice Assistants: A Domestication Calculus Across Three Years and Thirty Households

Publication Info

• Topic area: Long-term domestication of voice assistants in household settings
• Keywords: Voice assistants, domestication, household technology, human-computer interaction, longitudinal study, relational roles, spatial arrangements, routines, family dynamics, smart home

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing research on voice assistants (VAs) primarily focuses on short-term adoption and early stages of use, lacking insights into how these devices are progressively domesticated over extended periods and how their roles evolve as household dynamics change.
• Significance: Understanding long-term domestication is critical as VAs become increasingly integrated into homes and gain advanced capabilities, such as those enabled by large language models (LLMs), which may deepen their impact on family life and interpersonal relationships.
• Motivation and related work: Prior studies have explored VA adoption, privacy concerns, and their influence on family dynamics, but they often capture only initial enthusiasm or short-term adjustments. Long-term studies are rare, leaving a gap in understanding how VAs adapt to life transitions, shifting routines, and evolving relationships.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Introduction of the "domestication calculus," a framework for analyzing the long-term integration of VAs across three dimensions: spatial arrangements, relational roles, and household routines.
• Novelty:
  1. Development of the domestication calculus to conceptualize VA domestication as a dynamic, ongoing process rather than a linear progression.
  2. Identification of four recurring roles attributed to VAs: negotiators, separators, mediators, and amplifiers of shared life.
  3. Empirical insights from a three-year longitudinal study of 30 households, combining interviews, diary studies, spatial mappings, and photographs.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted a three-year study (2020–2022) with 30 German households, including both new and experienced VA users.
  • Data collection included iterative interviews, a three-week diary study, home maps, and photographs to trace changes in VA placement, roles, and routines.
  • Analysis involved thematic coding, infographic cards summarizing household trajectories, and collaborative axial coding to identify key themes.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Domestication unfolds across three interrelated dimensions: spatial arrangements (e.g., device placement and relocation), relational roles (e.g., VAs as negotiators or mediators), and household routines (e.g., embedding into care practices or being abandoned).
  • Generational differences were observed, with older participants expanding VA use across rooms, while younger users often sidelined or removed devices.
  • VAs were attributed roles such as negotiators of disputes, mediators of intimacy, and amplifiers of shared activities.
• Advantage over baselines: Unlike short-term studies, this research captures the fluidity and complexity of VA domestication over extended periods, highlighting how life transitions (e.g., moving, relationship changes) reshape device roles and integration.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Longitudinal study design with 30 households (33 participants, average age 36) over three years.
  • Multi-modal data collection: interviews, diary entries, spatial mappings, and photographs.
  • Analysis focused on tracing changes in spatial, relational, and routine dimensions over time.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Sample skewed toward primary device users and limited diversity across age and socio-economic groups.
  • Study conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have influenced domestic interactions.
  • Research predates the integration of LLM-based capabilities in VAs, requiring future studies to explore their impact on domestication.

Summary

This study introduces the domestication calculus to analyze the long-term integration of voice assistants (VAs) in domestic settings. By examining spatial arrangements, relational roles, and household routines across 30 households over three years, the research reveals that domestication is a dynamic, ongoing process influenced by life transitions and evolving relationships. Key findings include the identification of recurring VA roles (e.g., negotiators, mediators) and generational differences in device use. The study highlights the need for VA designs that support adaptability, shared control, and relational dynamics, offering a framework for future research and design in the context of increasingly capable, LLM-enhanced systems.