How voice augmentation supports elderly web users

Abstract

Online Web applications have become widespread and have made our daily life more convenient. However, older adults often find such applications inaccessible because of age-related changes to their physical and cognitive abilities. Two of the reasons that older adults may shy away from the Web are fears of the unknown and of the consequences of incorrect actions. We are extending a voice-based augmentation technique originally developed for blind users. We want to reduce the cognitive load on older adults by providing contextual support. An experiment was conducted to evaluate how voice augmentation can support elderly users in using Web applications. Ten older adults participated in our study and their subjective evaluations showed how the system gave them confidence in completing Web forms. We believe that voice augmentation may help address the users' concerns arising from their low confidence levels. © 2011 ACM.