Goals

This workshop focuses on tackling the current and emerging inter-connected (technical, social, ethical) challenges and approaches toward the design of CUIs that are inclusive of OAs’ needs, wants, and abilities, grounded in an understanding that addressing these require an interdisciplinary approach.

We are proposing several “seed” themes to anchor the workshop, with further themes emerging from the contributions brought by workshop participants:

• How does the usability of VUIs affect OAs’ experience with, perception of, and adoption of CUIs across several types of applications that are important to underrepresented users such as OAs
• What are the user requirements for CUIs that enable their adoption by OAs across the type of applications that are relevant to this demographic and across the many form factors under which CUIs are embedded?
• What are the sociotechnical and human factors that influence the adoption of emerging interfaces such as CUIs by OAs, and how may such factors lead to designs that are not inclusive of OAs?
• What tools and resources are needed to assist designers in building CUIs that are inclusive of OAs, and how can we develop such resources?
• What are the appropriate technical / engineering considerations that must be implemented to ensure CUIs do not further marginalize OAs?
• What approaches are most suitable to evaluate both the usability and the social and personal benefits of CUIs designed for OAs?
• How can CUIs be designed for and with OAs in order to facilitate and support better access to a diverse range of information, services, and applications?
• What role can CUIs serve in creating opportunities for social connection and providing OAs with an enhanced sense of belonging in the digital society?
• How can ageism be reduced or mitigated in CUI research and design?

Building on the research needs highlighted earlier, as well as on the interest in making CUIs more inclusive (as evidenced by the CUI 2022 conference motto), the proposed workshop aims to reach three goals:

• Enriching the Research Repository. We invite researchers from various fields to present their work on and collectively engage in synthesizing and collating findings from different disciplines, and to discuss barriers and approaches to designing CUIs that are usable, adoptable, personally, and culturally relevant to OAs.
• Continuing Community Building. Designing for OAs continues to be largely a research endeavor, with limited resources available within industry. At the same, the design and development of CUIs are now ubiquitous within industry. As such, a goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners across several disciplines and industries who are actively working or having interest toward understanding older adults’ use of and need for CUIs. We thus hope that this workshop will help the CUI community grow by attracting the interest of geronto-technology researchers, and help establish a community of practice at the intersection of these disciplines.  
• Raising Awareness. CUIs are a significant market of interest for industries, expected to grow from US$ 2 billion to an estimated US$ 30 billion in the next few years. At the same time, the ageing population is growing rapidly and may soon be the largest demographic of technology users (e.g., 17.5% of the population is of 65+ years of age in Canada). Yet research interest within HCI, CUI, and related fields is still relatively small. This workshop aims to raise awareness of the challenges and research opportunities at the intersection of CUI research and designing for OAs, helping further the interest within the CUI space in designing interfaces and interactions that are truly inclusive.