Older adults and the usability of speech interaction

The main aim of this paper is to outline how a new technology, Voice XML can be used to provide Internet access for older adults who do not have a computer. The design of the Voice XML dialogues which enable the interaction is informed by the experience of workers on the Age Resource Desk at Age concern Oxfordshire and comments from their clients who experimented with a VoiceXML system. It is hoped that systems such as the ones described in this paper will to address the challenge of enabling older adults to participate in ICT. Older people often have little knowledge of computing and in addition age associated impairment particularly memory and sight loss make using standard desktop computers difficult. The new solution put forward here uses XML based technology to provide alternative forms of Web access through VoiceXML which offers Web access over the telephone and a grammar system from which to build dialogues. The design of the Voice XML dialogues is crucial to the success of the system. Although there is no need to learn how to use a computer, speech systems also pose some problems for older adults.This paper describes special features in the dialogue which help older adults to use the system and reports experiments carried out to see how successful the dialogue was for older adults. It is acknowledged that the special design put forward in this paper does not help older adults alone. Features which help users to remember how to use a dialogue are useful for everybody.