User Experiences with Personal Intelligent Agents: A Sensory, Physical, Functional and Cognitive Affordances View

The interaction between users and their personal intelligent agents like Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and Google Home is getting more personal, therefore raising questions about the ethical obligations of technology companies. Thus, a thorough examination of users' experiences with these agents is indispensable. After all, it is merely the interaction between the human actor and the system that enables the artifact to be of consequence. This study uses an affordances lens to explore such use patterns. We qualitatively analyze 232 interviews with personal intelligent agents' users. The results reveal sensory affordances that support functional ones (hands-free and eyes-free use, familiarity and emotional connection) and dominate the users' experience with these agents. We also detect cognitive (personalization and learning from interactions), functional (speedy assistance and usefulness), and physical affordances (potential improvement). These findings have implications for researchers and practitioners alike seeking to understand usability patterns and challenges resulting from the integration of Apple's Siri, Google Now, Amazon's Echo and Microsoft's Cortana into users' everyday life.