The Influence of User Openness on Acceptance and UX of Smart Speakers

Abstract

Smart speakers have recently gained much interest and are expected to get even more attention in the future. However, not everybody has positive attitudes towards this new technology. In this work, we investigate whether or not the acceptance of smart speakers is dependent on their general "openness” as one personality dimension. We compared “open” persons (early adopter) with non-open persons (laggard) in a Wizard-of-Oz study setting and let our subjects interact with a smart speaker-replica (with both natural and computer-generated voice feedback). As baseline condition, subjects had to carry-out tasks in a traditional way, i. e., without the help of a smart assistant. Our study could not reveal significant effects regarding “openness” and acceptance of smart speakers, but we identified that the design of smart speakers need to be enhanced anyway to achieve a higher acceptance in society.