Voice design strategy for elderly population

The Future is Spoken

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Voice design strategy for elderly population

Shyamala Prayaga

Apr 19, 2021

The Future is Spoken presents Ryan Elza as this week's guest.

Ryan Elza is Vice President of Innovation and Technology at Volunteers of America National Services. Before that, Ryan was Social Entrepreneurship in Residence for Social Connectedness at AARP Foundation and led AARP Foundation's social isolation and digital inclusion work. He has an extensive background in the social determinants of health, design thinking and civic engagement. He is a recognized subject matter expert on social isolation and voice-first design for older adults. He has been at the frontier of developing voice-first solutions for low-income older adults. Ryan is a trained anthropologist, and has a master's degree in technology entrepreneurship from the University of Maryland, and is an avid mentor to students and startups at various stages of development.

Prior to joining AARP Foundation, Ryan served as the Program Management Specialist and adjunct professor for the national award-winning Honors College Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program at the University of Maryland. During his tenure with EIP, Ryan developed and launched several new entrepreneurial programs and initiatives, including the EIP Terp Tank Startup Competition and the Global Entrepreneurship Semester Program. Previously, he worked at The Advisory Board Company on the performance technology team helping health systems implement transformational solutions.

Mr Elza was a social entrepreneur by the practice during his undergraduate career at the University of Maryland, where he founded and scaled the UMD Chapter of Health Leads, a non-profit that trained and placed students in primary care clinics as family advocates for low-income families to find resources such as food, housing, and job training. During his tenure, he worked with hospital administrators, primary care physicians, university administrators, and student volunteers to implement a closed-loop screening and referral system for the social determinants of health.

Starting with their own experiences, they end up discussing voice design strategy for the elderly population.

Tune in now!

Conversation Highlights:

[00:02:21]: Ryan's journey to Social Entrepreneurship

[00:06:01]: Barriers when designing voice experiences for the elderly population

[00:11:57]: Usecases for Voice in Elderly Population

[00:16:14]: Bot Personality. Do older adults understand they are interacting with an AI?

[00:19:39]: Solving for discoverability through education

[00:23:48]: How to design for age-related issues or disabilities?

[00:33:05]: Designing for Social Isolation and mental health

[00:40:09]: Designing for memory-related issues

[00:42:56]: Ryan's suggestion for getting started