Voice Controlled Devices and Older Adults – A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

For older adults Voice Controlled Devices (VCDs) could offer an easy way to access to digital services. This paper provides a systematic literature review (N = 60) of the state of research on learnability, usability, and use of VCDs and older adults. Furthermore, the paper highlight the predominant study methods used and identify positive and negative characteristics of VCDs. In addition, it presents reservations and barriers that prevent older adults from using VCDs. This work extends related work by conducting a literature review within the databases Goolge Scholar, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, and ProQuest. The structured literature review was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) proposed scheme. The results show that as of 2018, the number of researches on VCDs and older adults is steadily increasing, and this population group is receiving increasing attention. Most of the studies (40%) used mixed methods for data collection and analysis. The literature review clearly shows that older adults have few problems learning and using VCDs. Older adults face problems caused by faulty speech recognition of commands or a non-existent display that visually shows input and output of commands. Obstacles are largely privacy and data protection concerns.