Exploring how users behave when they interact with a conversational agent has been a popular research topic recently. However, very few studies have focused on the unique features of old people's interaction with an agent. In this paper, we report the results of interviews conducted with 19 participants, with ages comprised between 30 and 70 years. The interviews were conducted after the participants used the conversational agent, "Clova" for two weeks. During the interview, the subjects were asked about the frequently used functions and the satisfying and unsatisfying aspects of the agent. In this study, the participants with ages of 50 years or older were classified as older adults, while those under the age of 50 were classified as younger adults. Then we compared the characteristics of these two user groups by conducting a text analysis of the interview script. Our finding indicated that, older adults tended to personify the agent more by using polite words such as 'Grateful', while younger adults tended to consider it as a tool by placing more importance on its convenience; Also, older adults perceived the music function as having a high importance compared to the younger adults.

Older adults are vulnerable to symptoms of depression. The degree of depression is particularly high among older adults who live alone. To address this issue, various companion robots, which are capable of psychologically communicating with users, have been proposed. However, older adults' preferences on the appearance of these robots have not been systematically investigated; this forms the focus of the present study. We interviewed 191 older adults; investigated their preferences on the design elements of robots including type, weight, and material; and analyzed the data by age, gender, and living arrangement. Our primary goal was to determine how companion robots should be designed, paying special attention to older adults who live alone. Our findings indicated that those living alone prefer a bear-like robot and negative to the heavy robot. Our results suggest that companion robots need to be designed with careful consideration of older adults' physical and psychological preferences.

This study investigates the influence of digital content on mobile devices including flash animations, app books, and augmented reality (AR) books on children's reading interest and reading concentration for books. The factors responsible for the aforementioned influence were also investigated. The results from this research show that flash animation can significantly increase the interest in reading and concentration. AR books and app books led children to become more interested in storybooks but significantly decreased their reading concentration. Following a comparison of the digital content, it was concluded that all the tested prototypes could positively increase the reading interest of children in the same-storyline books. However, prototypes with a high level of interactivity could have a negative influence on children’s reading concentration. The research findings are important in determining how to design digital content for children.

Smartphone OS, such as Android, enables us to install third party applications. However, security threats of malicious applications are rapidly increasing due to the nature of the third party applications where only developers can assign required permissions. For this reason, attackers can inject exploits into a normal application with inappropriately acquired permissions. In this paper, we propose a method to distinguish an application by analyzing permissions set and enhanced user interfaces to improve the chance of making right decisions. The proposed methods are intended for users to make better decisions with more information provided by the system.