“Can You Help Me Measure My Blood Sugar?” Co-design of a Voice Interface to Assist Patients and Caregivers at Home

Assistive technologies can have a direct and positive impact on the life of users, because they allow patients to be hospitalized in the comfort of their own home while still receiving high quality care from the clinical team and their caregivers. This article outlines the development of a digital assistant equipped with voice and multimedia capabilities for patients hospitalized at home. Following a first phase of requirements' gathering and exploration of user needs, we developed a voice app (e.g. an Alexa Skill) that provides answers in a multi-medial format to patients and caregivers via a smart speaker equipped with a screen. Preliminary results of the experimentation show that the digital assistant was perceived as useful by the patients and their caregivers, even though they also found some limitations that could lead to improvements in the future.