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Web-Based Embodied Conversational Agents and Older People

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Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction Research with Older People

Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

Abstract

Within Human-Computer Interaction, there has recently been an important turn to embodied and voice-based interaction. In this chapter, we discuss our ongoing research on building online Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs), specifically, their interactive 3D web graphics aspects. We present ECAs based on our technological pipeline, which integrates a number of free online editors, such as Adobe Fuse CC or MakeHuman, and standards, mainly BML (Behaviour Markup Language). We claim that making embodiment available for online ECAs is attainable, and advantageous over current alternatives, mostly desktop-based. In this chapter we also report on initial results of activities aimed to explore the physical appearance of ECAs for older people. A group of them (N = 14) designed female ECAs. Designing them was easy and great fun. The perspective on older-adult HCI introduced in this chapter is mostly technological, allowing for rapid online experimentations to address key issues, such as anthropomorphic aspects, in the design of ECAs with, and for, older people.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Surface meshes are most usual representations in 3D graphics; alternatives are voxels, for medical and engineering applications, or unstructured point clouds coming from 3D scanners.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partly funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 675324 (ENRICH) and under the contract number H2020-645012-RIA (KRISTINA). We also acknowledge the support from the A-C-T network.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hörzentrum Oldenburg GmbH & Medizinische Physik and Cluster of Excellence ‘Hearing4all’, Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Gerard Llorach

  2. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Javi Agenjo & Josep Blat

  3. Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Sergio Sayago

Authors
  1. Gerard Llorach
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  2. Javi Agenjo
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  3. Josep Blat
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  4. Sergio Sayago
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gerard Llorach .

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  1. Departament de Matemàtiques i Informàtica, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Sergio Sayago

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Llorach, G., Agenjo, J., Blat, J., Sayago, S. (2019). Web-Based Embodied Conversational Agents and Older People. In: Sayago, S. (eds) Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction Research with Older People. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06076-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06076-3_8

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-06075-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-06076-3

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