Bridging the Cognitive Gap: Co-Designing and Evaluating a Voice-Enabled Community Chatbot for Older Adults
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866910049709850624 |
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| author | Chen, Feng Li, Luna Xingyu Chung, Ray-Yuan Zeng, Wenyu Jeon, Yein Hu, Yizhou Zaslavsky, Oleg |
| author_facet | Chen, Feng Li, Luna Xingyu Chung, Ray-Yuan Zeng, Wenyu Jeon, Yein Hu, Yizhou Zaslavsky, Oleg |
| contents | Digital portals in retirement communities often create physical and cognitive barriers for older adults, leading to digital avoidance. Generative AI offers a solution by enabling natural language interaction, yet its adoption is hindered by the opaque, "Black Box" nature of these systems and lingering usability challenges. To address this, we evaluated a voice-enabled Large Language Model (LLM) chatbot at a continuing care retirement community in the Pacific Northwest. Through a mixed-methods Co-Design and Literacy Workshop (N=25), we applied a "Glass Box" approach combining multimodal accessibility with intentional AI education. The intervention significantly improved participants' technical understanding (p=0.004) and perceived transparency (p=0.001), shifting their interaction model from blind trust to informed reliance prioritizing verifiable evidence. While voice input reduced cognitive load, usability scores dropped significantly for users aged 80 and older (r=-0.50), indicating that truly age-inclusive AI must evolve beyond touch-based interfaces toward zero-touch navigation. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_11303 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Bridging the Cognitive Gap: Co-Designing and Evaluating a Voice-Enabled Community Chatbot for Older Adults Chen, Feng Li, Luna Xingyu Chung, Ray-Yuan Zeng, Wenyu Jeon, Yein Hu, Yizhou Zaslavsky, Oleg Human-Computer Interaction Digital portals in retirement communities often create physical and cognitive barriers for older adults, leading to digital avoidance. Generative AI offers a solution by enabling natural language interaction, yet its adoption is hindered by the opaque, "Black Box" nature of these systems and lingering usability challenges. To address this, we evaluated a voice-enabled Large Language Model (LLM) chatbot at a continuing care retirement community in the Pacific Northwest. Through a mixed-methods Co-Design and Literacy Workshop (N=25), we applied a "Glass Box" approach combining multimodal accessibility with intentional AI education. The intervention significantly improved participants' technical understanding (p=0.004) and perceived transparency (p=0.001), shifting their interaction model from blind trust to informed reliance prioritizing verifiable evidence. While voice input reduced cognitive load, usability scores dropped significantly for users aged 80 and older (r=-0.50), indicating that truly age-inclusive AI must evolve beyond touch-based interfaces toward zero-touch navigation. |
| title | Bridging the Cognitive Gap: Co-Designing and Evaluating a Voice-Enabled Community Chatbot for Older Adults |
| topic | Human-Computer Interaction |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11303 |