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Right for the Job or Opposites Attract? Exploring Cross-Generational User Experiences with “Younger” and “Older” Voice Assistants

Published: 10 July 2023 Publication History

Abstract

Efforts to diversify the design of virtual assistants (VAs) are inspiring new work on voice as a factor of user experience (UX). One trajectory is voice agedness. The Computers are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm suggests that humanlike computer agents are perceived in line with models of people. Notably, work on ageism and similarity attraction theory would predict that agents with “younger” and “older” voices may be treated differently. As a first effort, we explored the UX of a novel “older adult” text-to-speech (TTS) system. Younger (n=16) and older (n=18) people evaluated a VA that switched voices (“young” and “old”) in a storytelling activity. While most preferred the VA's younger-sounding voices on most measures, all tended to rate the “elder” VA as more appropriate within the storytelling context, challenging expectations based on similarity-attractiveness theory. This work provides initial clues about the relationship between age characteristics and age stereotypes for voice UX.

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Supplementary materials, including statistics and a video clip of the voice assistant prototype

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Silver-Tongued and Sundry: Exploring Intersectional Pronouns with ChatGPTProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642303(1-14)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2024)Is S(He) My Friend or Servant: Exploring Customers’ Attitudes Toward Anthropomorphic Voice AssistantsServices Marketing Quarterly10.1080/15332969.2024.242852345:4(513-540)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2024

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  1. Right for the Job or Opposites Attract? Exploring Cross-Generational User Experiences with “Younger” and “Older” Voice Assistants

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    DIS '23 Companion: Companion Publication of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
    July 2023
    296 pages
    ISBN:9781450398985
    DOI:10.1145/3563703
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike International 4.0 License.

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 10 July 2023

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    Author Tags

    1. Ageism
    2. Computer voice
    3. Older adults
    4. User experience
    5. Virtual assistants
    6. Voice UX
    7. Voice assistants
    8. Voice interface

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    Funding Sources

    • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Grants-in-Aid for Early Career Scientists (KAKENHI WAKATE)

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    DIS '23
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    DIS '23: Designing Interactive Systems Conference
    July 10 - 14, 2023
    PA, Pittsburgh, USA

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 1,158 of 4,684 submissions, 25%

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    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)Silver-Tongued and Sundry: Exploring Intersectional Pronouns with ChatGPTProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642303(1-14)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2024)Is S(He) My Friend or Servant: Exploring Customers’ Attitudes Toward Anthropomorphic Voice AssistantsServices Marketing Quarterly10.1080/15332969.2024.242852345:4(513-540)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2024

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