Avatars in Assistive Homes for the Elderly

Designing user interfaces for elderly people has become a prominent research topic. In the context of Assistive Homes the development of user-friendly and alternative interfaces for the improvement of usability and acceptance is an important goal. Applying avatars shall provide notable benefits. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a "photo-realistic avatar for people with mild cognitive impairment and dementia". The findings of the user trials show positive effects such as raised user's attention, increased likeability but no effects on memory functions. Also other approaches from Germany and Spain with less anthropomorph-looking avatars are presented and their results discussed.

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