Lessons Learned From the SoBeezy Program for Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experimentation and Evaluation.

This multisite study conducted in real-life conditions among more than 100 older adults living in the community provides enlightening results of the reality from the ground of digital tools designed for the aging population. The COVID-19 context appeared both as an opportunity, given the massive needs of the older adults during this crisis, and as limiting due to sanitary constraints. Nevertheless, the experimentation showed overall good acceptability of the voice assistant and a high level of satisfaction of the participants among those who really used the system and could be a way of improving the autonomy and well-being of older adults and their families. However, the findings also highlighted resistance to change and difficulties for the users to ask for help. The experimentation also emphasized levers for next deployments and future research. The next step will be the experimentation of the activity-sharing component that could not be tested due to the COVID-19 context.