The Co-design Process in the Creation of Conversational Agents for People with Dementia

Many studies have been carried out to establish the effectiveness of conversational agents on the behavior of older people with dementia with positive findings. In recent years, studies have shown that conversational agents have potential in addressing behavioral and communication challenges for people with dementia and their caregivers. These technologies have been shown to provide cognitive stimulation, encourage social interaction, provide personal assistance and much more that will be mentioned throughout the paper. In this study, we describe and report on the co-design process that was utilized for developing voice-based conversational agents. We describe the insights and recommendations that emerged from observing the three focus groups that included individuals with dementia and their caregivers. In this work, we explore the effectiveness of using co-design activities in the creation of voice-based conversational agents for people with dementia. We do this by addressing three key research questions: 1) What type of challenges and barriers affect the implementation of the co-design process for people with dementia and their caregivers? 2) How can we co-design technologies with participants who are directly involved in the provision of care for people with dementia? and 3) In what way does the resulting assistive technology support the provision of care for people with dementia and their caregivers. At the end of the study a number of challenges and insights are mentioned. The paper is organized into section introduction, literature review, results, discussions and conclusions.