Tutoring the Elderly on the Use of Recommending Systems.

Purpose – The elderly are often unfamiliar with computer technology and can encounter great difficulties. Moreover, the terms used in such systems may prove to be a challenge for these users. The aim of this research is to tutor the elderly on using an adaptive e‐shop system in order to buy products easily.Design/methodology/approach – In view of the above, the paper creates an intelligent tutoring component for the elderly. It incorporated this component into an e‐shop application for interactive TV in order to evaluate it. The component created is both medium‐ and domain‐independent.Findings – The independent tutoring component that provided combined product recommendations and adaptive help actions had a positive influence on the elderly and created a friendlier shopping environment for them.Originality/value – The research proposes a novel component for the elderly that uniquely combines product recommendations and adaptive help reactions. This component can be used in a large variety of recommendatio...