Voice assistants embodied in smart speakers (e.g., Amazon Echo, Google Home) enable conversational interaction that does not necessarily rely on expertise with mobile or desktop computing. Hence, these voice assistants offer new opportunities to different populations, including individuals who are not interested or able to use traditional computing devices such as computers and smartphones. To understand how older adults who use technology infrequently perceive and use these voice assistants, we conducted a three-week field deployment of the Amazon Echo Dot in the homes of seven older adults. Participants described increased confidence using digital technology and found the conversational voice interfaces easy to use. While some types of usage dropped over the three-week period (e.g., playing music), we observed consistent usage for finding online information. Given that much of this information was health-related, this finding emphasizes the need to revisit concerns about credibility of information with this new interaction medium. Although features to support memory (e.g., setting timers, reminders) were initially perceived as useful, the actual usage was unexpectedly low due to reliability concerns. We discuss how these findings apply to other user groups along with design implications and recommendations for future work on voice user interfaces. 
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                            Exploring Deceptive Design Patterns in Voice Interfaces
                        
                    
    
            Deceptive design patterns (sometimes called “dark patterns”) are user interface design elements that may trick, deceive, or mislead users into behaviors that often benefit the party implementing the design over the end user. Prior work has taxonomized, investigated, and measured the prevalence of such patterns primarily in visual user interfaces (e.g., on websites). However, as the ubiquity of voice assistants and other voice-assisted technologies increases, we must anticipate how deceptive designs will be (and indeed, are already) deployed in voice interactions. This paper makes two contributions towards characterizing and surfacing deceptive design patterns in voice interfaces. First, we make a conceptual contribution, identifying key characteristics of voice interfaces that may enable deceptive design patterns, and surfacing existing and theoretical examples of such patterns. Second, we present the findings from a scenario-based user survey with 93 participants, in which we investigate participants’ perceptions of voice interfaces that we consider to be both deceptive and non-deceptive. 
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                            - Award ID(s):
- 1955227
- PAR ID:
- 10428328
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- EuroUSEC '22: Proceedings of the 2022 European Symposium on Usable Security
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 64 to 78
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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