Abstract
As a result of the great technological advances in the last decades, new solutions are emerging to avoid social isolation and to delay the institutionalization of older adults, as is the case of virtual assistants. This paper presents the usability evaluation of a Virtual Assistive Companion (VAC), the CaMeLi. The usability evaluation was based on a multi-method approach that comprises self-reported usability, usability reported by an evaluator and critical incidents registration. The usability tests were performed with 46 participants with an average age of 64 years. The results showed a good usability and satisfaction level, although usability reported by evaluators and critical incidents registration suggest that some functionalities need to be improved in order to facilitate the VAC interaction and understandability.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Wiles, J.L., Leibing, A., Guberman, N., Reeve, J., Allen, R.E.S.: The meaning of ‘Aging in Place’ to older people. Gerontologist 52(3), 357–366 (2012)
Bedaf, S., et al.: Which activities threaten independent living of elderly when becoming problematic: inspiration for meaningful service robot functionality. Disabil. Rehabil. Assist. Technol. 9(6), 445–452 (2014)
Tsiourti, C., Joly, E., Wings, C., Ben Moussa, M., Wac, K.: Virtual assistive companions for older adults: qualitative field study and design implications. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, pp. 57–64 (2014)
Cooper, R.S., McElroy, J.F., Rolandi, W., Sanders, D., Ulmer, R.M., Peebles, E.: Personal virtual assistant, 21 March 2008
Tsiourti, C., et al.: A virtual assistive companion for older adults: design implications for a real-world application, pp. 1014–1033. Springer, Cham (2018)
Cáritas Diocesana de Coimbra: International Project Cameli (2017). https://www.caritascoimbra.pt/en/project/cameli/
Martins, A.I., Queirós, A., Silva, A.G., Rocha, N.P.: Usability evaluation of ambient assisted living systems using a multi-method approach. In: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion - DSAI 2016, pp. 261–268 (2016)
Bickmore, T., Gruber, A., Picard, R.: Establishing the computer-patient working alliance in automated health behavior change interventions. Patient Educ. Couns. 59(1), 21–30 (2005)
Schulman and Daniel: Embodied agents for long-term interaction, Northeastern University (2013)
Bickmore, T.W.: Relational agents: effecting change through human-computer relationships, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2003)
Quintas, J., Menezes, P., Dias, J.: Information model and architecture specification for context awareness interaction decision support in cyber-physical human-machine systems. IEEE Trans. Hum. Mach. Syst. 47(3), 323–331 (2017)
Quintas, J., Martins, G.S., Santos, L., Menezes, P., Dias, J.: Toward a context-aware human-robot interaction framework based on cognitive development. IEEE Trans. Syst. Man, Cybern. Syst., 1–11 (2018)
Cassell, J.: Embodied conversational interface agents. Commun. ACM 43(4), 70–78 (2000)
Kramer, M., Yaghoubzadeh, R., Kopp, S., Pitsch, K.: A conversational virtual human as autonomous assistant for elderly and cognitively impaired users? Social acceptability and design considerations, vol. 220. Ges. für Informatik (2013)
Klein, J., Moon, Y., Picard, R.W.: This computer responds to user frustration. Interact. Comput. 14(2), 119–140 (2002)
Nijholt, A.: Disappearing computers, social actors and embodied agents. In: Proceedings. 2003 International Conference on Cyberworlds, pp. 128–134 (2003)
Kelley, J.F.: An iterative design methodology for user-friendly natural language office information applications. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. 2(1), 26–41 (1984)
Vardoulakis, L.P., Ring, L., Barry, B., Sidner, C.L., Bickmore, T.: Designing relational agents as long term social companions for older adults, pp. 289–302. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)
Bickmore, T.W., et al.: A randomized controlled trial of an automated exercise coach for older adults. J. Am. Geriatr. Soc. 61(10), 1676–1683 (2013)
Kasap, Z., Magnenat-Thalmann, N.: Building long-term relationships with virtual and robotic characters: the role of remembering. Vis. Comput. 28(1), 87–97 (2012)
Ring, L., Shi, L., Totzke, K., Bickmore, T.: Social support agents for older adults: longitudinal affective computing in the home. J. Multimodal User Interfaces 9(1), 79–88 (2015)
Lund, A.M.: Measuring Usability with the USE Questionnaire. Usability Interface 8(2), 3–6 (2001)
Martins, A.I., Rosa, A.F., Queirós, A., Silva, A., Rocha, N.P.: Definition and validation of the ICF - usability scale. Procedia Comput. Sci. 67 (2015)
Martins, A.I., Queirós, A., Silva, A.G., Rocha, N.P.: ICF based Usability Scale: evaluating usability according to the evaluators’ perspective about the users’ performance. In: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion - DSAI 2016, pp. 378–383 (2016)
Acknowledgements
This work was partially supported by the GrowMeUp project, funded by the European Commission within the H2020-PHC-2014, (Grant Agreement: 643647) and by the DAPAS project co-funded by the European AAL Joint Programme (Active and Assisted Living — ICT for ageing well, Call 2017) and by FCT (Portuguese Funding Authority) - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P. (AAL/0005/2017).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Jegundo, A.L. et al. (2019). Usability Evaluation of a Virtual Assistive Companion. In: Rocha, Á., Adeli, H., Reis, L., Costanzo, S. (eds) New Knowledge in Information Systems and Technologies. WorldCIST'19 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 931. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16184-2_67
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16184-2_67
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-16183-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-16184-2
eBook Packages: Intelligent Technologies and RoboticsIntelligent Technologies and Robotics (R0)