A User Study on the Feasibility and Acceptance of Delivering Physical Activity Programs to Older Adults through Conversational Agents
Open accessAbstract
The implementation of evidence-based physical activity (PA) programs for older adults is limited in part due to the administration-related personnel costs. The rapid growth of the off-the-shelf smart speakers, conversational agents (CAs), demonstrates the potential of scalable delivery of PA programs to older adults at home. We implemented a PA virtual coach based on an evidence-based PA program on a Google Home device, and conducted a user study to examine how older adults interact with the virtual coach. Results suggested that all older adults were able to complete the PA program with guidance from the virtual coach, and showed high acceptance and intentions to use CAs in the future. Analyses on conversation turn-taking further suggested that all older adults (including 80% novice CAs users) experienced minimum difficulty talking with the PA virtual coach. Relationships among age, technology acceptance, conversation patterns and the perceived sociability of CAs are also discussed.
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Prior research has not focused on voice-based applications that support physical activity among older adults.
“However, there is a notable lack of prior research specifically focusing on the development of voice-based applications to support physical activities among older adults, despite evidence indicating that older adults perceive this approach as acceptable [14].”
From Using Experience-Based Participatory Approach to Design Interactive Voice User Interfaces for Delivering Physical Activity Programs with Older Adults (2023) · cites this paper as [14]
Older adults consider voice-based physical activity applications acceptable.
“despite evidence indicating that older adults perceive this approach as acceptable [14].”
From Using Experience-Based Participatory Approach to Design Interactive Voice User Interfaces for Delivering Physical Activity Programs with Older Adults (2023) · cites this paper as [14]
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- Authors
- Chin, J., Quinn, K., Muramatsu, N., & Marquez, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- University of Illinois Chicago (US)
- Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition, University of Illinois at Chicago
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-12
- Volume
- 64
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 33-37
- ISSN
- 0163-5182 (ISSN-L)
- 1071-1813
- 2169-5067
- PMC
- PMC8232393
- OpenAlex
- W3126265517
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 2.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (UL1TR002003)
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Demography › Technology Use by Older Adults
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Keywords
- chatbots, physical activity programs, older adults, virtual coach, smart speakers, Google Home, technology acceptance, home-based exercise, user acceptance
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