Towards VoiceXML Dialogue Design for Older Adults

The organization Age Concern has established a network of Age Resource Desks to help older people benefit from Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This paper uses the experience of the Resource Desk run by Age Concern Oxfordshire, and comments from their clients who experimented with a VoiceXML system 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. Although this approach removes the need for older adults to learn how to use a standard desktop computer, the would-be dialogue user is still obliged to learn how to interact with a speech system. This paper focuses on the usability of VoiceXML dialogues for older adults and the challenges of embedding context sensitive help and instructions in dialogues used by older adults.