Building Community Capacity: Exploring Voice Assistants to Support Older Adults in an Independent Living Community

Title of the Paper

Building Community Capacity: Exploring Voice Assistants to Support Older Adults in an Independent Living Community

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Voice Assistant Technology, Community Support and Elderly Well-being
• Keywords: Older Adults, Voice Assistants, Independent Living, Capacity Building, Community Assets

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges:

  • Current voice assistants (VAs) are primarily designed for individual use, lacking support for collaborative and shared needs in community environments.
  • Older adults perceive the functionalities of existing voice assistants as "too generic or trivial," making it difficult to fully meet their needs.
  • Although independent living communities have the potential to support older adults' social participation, the adoption and sustainability of voice assistant technology in these communities face unknown challenges.

• Significance:

  • The global aging population is increasing, driving the demand for solutions that support independent living for older adults.
  • The design of independent living communities significantly impacts older adults' sense of social participation, health, and well-being.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  • Many studies have explored the individual use of voice assistants in homes, showing that older adults have strong needs for functionalities related to health and social interaction. However, research on community-level collective use scenarios is limited.
  • Related studies suggest that adopting community-focused technology design (e.g., "asset-based design") could address this issue, but practical research in this area remains scarce.

Proposed Solution

• Methods or Solutions:

  • This study adopts Chaskin's "community capacity building" framework to analyze existing assets in independent living communities and explore how to extend voice assistant functionalities to support community needs.
  • A mixed-methods approach was used, including virtual community forums (38 participants) and semi-structured interviews (24 participants), to gather feedback from older adults on voice assistants and their potential integration into the community.

• Innovative Aspects:

  • Focus on community-level use scenarios for voice assistants rather than traditional individual use cases.
  • Propose a design framework to enhance voice assistants' ability to support older adults in collaborative participation, information access, and connectivity.
  • Integrate existing community resources (e.g., tech-savvy residents, internal directories, and social activities) into the design, enabling voice assistants to facilitate comprehensive community development.

• Implementation Steps:

  1. Collaborate with community organizations to collect feedback from residents on the functionalities and limitations of existing voice assistants.
  2. Use Chaskin's four characteristics of community capacity (sense of community, resident commitment, problem-solving ability, resource access) to evaluate existing community assets.
  3. Develop new use cases for voice assistants based on community needs.
  4. Explore technical training, outreach programs, and long-term support models to ensure sustainability.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Findings:

  • Identified three potential voice assistant use scenarios relevant to the needs of older adult communities:
    1. Improving information dissemination and access, including personalized community news and event reminders.
    2. Enhancing existing community services, such as maintenance requests, meal reservations, and safety alerts.
    3. Facilitating social connections among residents, such as matching residents with similar interests for meals or social activities.

• Advantages Over Existing Solutions:

  • Expanded the scope of existing voice assistant functionalities from individual support to community-level interaction.
  • Adopted an asset-based design approach, placing existing community resources at the core of the design to support more inclusive solutions.

• Experimental and Evaluation Results:

  • Participants generally felt that current commercial voice assistant functionalities are insufficient to meet community-level needs.
  • Emphasized that personalized design and support for user-prioritized functionalities (e.g., health, safety, social interaction) are critical for the successful integration of voice assistants.
  • Explored the feasibility of promoting voice assistant technology adoption through community learning groups and technical support.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • The study sample may be biased toward users interested in technology, potentially excluding older adults with negative attitudes toward voice assistants.
  • Further exploration is needed on privacy protection issues and how to address potential community policy constraints.
  • Future work will focus on validating the proposed design framework, developing community-customized voice assistant applications, and exploring their transferability to other communities.