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Designing a conversational agent for cognitive assistance in the kitchen

Tama

Conversational user interfaces can significantly decrease technology adoption barriers among older adults, which provides new possibilities to develop interactive technologies to enhance older adults' independence and agency. Home cooking is an everyday activity that is connected to healthy and active ageing, but kitchen technologies to date lack interactivity and therefore might risk autonomy. 

This project presents a participatory design of a conversational agent for the provision of cognitive assistance in older adults' home cooking. Through a video-ethnographic investigation of complexity of everyday cooking practices, the project has developed a dialogue model for the provision of organisational assistance in recipe following and nutrition advice. The dialogue model was tested with a Wizard of Oz methodology with participants interacting with the agent while preparing a meal in the kitchen. The project explored interaction mechanisms and challenges among older adults through the concept of context-awareness and proactivity. The project also developed graphic transcript as a method to design more inclusive and interactive technologies with older adults.
 

Tama

Research team:

Sanna Kuoppamäki, Assistant Professor, KTH
Razan Jaber, PhD student, Stockholm University
Aida Hosseini, Research assistant, KTH
Donald McMillan, Senior Lecturer, Stockholm University

Funding: 

Digital Futures - Advanced Adaptive Intelligent Systems (2021-2024)

Publications: