Digital ethnography of home use of digital personal assistants

Jeni Paay, Jesper Kjeldskov*, Kathrine Maja Hansen, Tobias Jørgensen, Katrine L. Overgaard

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)
11 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Commercialised voice user interface devices for the home, like Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod, with integrated digital personal assistants have rapidly grown in popularity. These devices embody intelligent software agents that support users in their everyday life through easy and intuitive conversational interactions. While their use in everyday activities is largely unexplored, the proliferation in home use presents a valuable opportunity to add to understanding around the use of in-home digital personal assistants. In this paper, we investigate their home use in a broad context to learn more about people’s experiences, attitudes, interactions and expectations with these devices contributing new insights to current knowledge around this use. Applying the digital ethnography method, we collected 3542 reviews and comments about Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod on Amazon, eBay, and Reddit. Six main themes and 29 categories were derived through filtering, thematic analysis and affinity diagramming. These findings constitute a conceptual framework characterising the current landscape of home use of digital personal assistants. Additionally, we identify and discuss unique issues discovered around the invisible interface, interactive freedom, and creative appropriation. We use our findings to propose implications for interaction design of DPAs for home use.
Original languageEnglish
JournalBehaviour and Information Technology
Volume41
Pages (from-to)740–758
Number of pages19
ISSN0144-929X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 Oct 2020

Keywords

  • Voice user interface
  • digital ethnography
  • digital personal assistant
  • intelligent software agent
  • smart home

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