Introducing wearables in the kitchen: An assessment of user acceptance in younger and older adults

Abstract

Wearable computers allow users to record and access information at any time. The adoption and use of such devices is largely dependent on the users’ acceptance of the technology. Previous studies investigated technology acceptance of wearables without having end-users directly trying the technology. The present paper aims at assessing the user acceptance of a wearable device to support cooking related activities, together with aspects of usability and experience of use. To this end, we developed a kitchen apron with embedded commands for navigating through the contents of a digital cookbook and asked a group of younger (N = 15, mean age 23.9 SD = 2.5) and older users (N = 15, mean age 30.3 SD = 7.6) to deploy it while preparing a recipe. Respondents’ opinions were collected using questionnaires after they had accomplished the cooking task required. Overall, the kitchen apron was well received by both younger and older adults. Findings suggest that the perceived usefulness of the device and the compatibility of it with users’ common activities accounted for the intention to adopt and use a wearable device in the kitchen.