“Alexa, how do I…?”: Older adults learning to use digital home assistants

Background: Digital home assistants can support older adults with a range of daily activities and reduce their needs for support. These benefits are only possible if the older adults can successfully learn how to use them and maintain their use over time. Research is needed to explore older adults’ perspectives on learning to use digital home assistants to uncover the factors that influence their experience. Research aim: The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of older adults regarding the factors that impacted their experience learning to use digital home assistants. Methods: Participants were 35 community-dwelling older adults between the ages of 60 and 81 who reported owning a digital home assistant. This mixed-method study included questionnaires (demographics, technology experience, mobile device proficiency, technology readiness, digital home assistant usage), and a semi-structured interview designed to explore participants’ attitudes, experiences, and preferences for learning to use their device based on components from the Personalized Instruction and Continued Support (PICS) Framework (i.e., user profile, environmental characteristics, and technology characteristics; Blocker, 2022). Results: Participants discussed facilitators and barriers related to their user profile (abilities, age, attitudes and motivations); environmental characteristics (stressors, learning environment, social support); and technology characteristics (complexity, novelty, usability). Perceived barriers included instructions not being designed for their age group, memory demands, stress and distraction, lack of social support, as well as technology novelty and complexity. Perceived facilitators included general technology proficiency; expectations from others; benefits of use; ease of use; learning efficiency and memorability; as well as satisfaction and enjoyment of use. Conclusions: The findings highlighted the need to increase the availability of education and training to support older adults’ use of smart home technologies. We have provided guidelines developed from the results to provide direction for the design of instructional protocols, including specifications for intelligent instructional software.