IPA Study

Studio di ricerca congiunto per esplorare le preferenze degli utenti sulla proattività degli IPA

Please use the app only with a corresponding (required) Prolific registration for this user study. The participation in this study is completely voluntary.

About the IPA Study

As part of a large-scale research project aimed to understand users' valuation of various features of Intelligent Personal Assistant Systems (IPAs), we are investigating the users' preferences with respect to proactivity. Apple’s Siri, Google, Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa are currently the most popular digital helpers available to the masses on smartphones or in smart houses. Although these IPAs' task is to provide us support in various day to day situations by performing small tasks (e.g. place an order) on our behalf, they are currently more reactive than proactive in offering us their support.

To investigate your preferences in terms of IPA proactivity, we designed a study in which, we can issue questions relevant to your location or context via an app. For instance: if you are currently in a train station, we would like to ask you some questions related to public transportation. If it is evening, we might want to ask you questions related to an IPA which could order you dinner. By proceeding this way, we expect more realistic results.

However, in order to be able to issue the right questions at the right time of the day, the App requires access to your location, accessibility, and usage stats services. These services will not be used for other purposes, except for the one mentioned above.

Study structure

Part1. At the setup step, you will have to answer the first wave of questions. This will take you about 15-20 minutes. After answering the first part of the questions you will be asked to enter your Prolific ID. Please make sure you enter your Prolific-ID correctly; otherwise, we will not be able to reward you.

Part2. During the next 7 days, the app will send you notifications with questions to various daily life situations (use cases) in which an Intelligent Assistant could be helpful. After receiving a notification, you have 15 minutes time to answers the set of questions that go with it. Yet, if you are, for instance, driving, (or engaged in other safety-critical activity) please do not answer to the apps' notifications. Any not answered notification will be triggered again at a later point in time. In case you can answer to the App's notifications safely, please read all questions carefully and try to respond as honestly as possible, as there are no right or wrong answers. Each question set will take you 1-2 minutes to respond to.

This app was developed as a joint research project by Goethe University in Frankfurt (Germany) and TU Darmstadt (Germany).

This research is funded by the Entourage Project.

Thank you for your interest in our study and supporting our research.