perceived to be immensely advantageous when compared
with a typical mobile phone based hands free systems.
However, voice command was not without its issues. Many
people with PD experience severe problems with their
speech and voice which can change with ON/OFF periods.
PM3 in particular had marked difficulty producing
intelligible speech, which often caused him to avoid certain
situations or social interactions: “This [his voice] is not
right… It’s frustrating. You can’t get rid of this […] Now
it’s really worse, so now I tend to wait for me to be better
[…] There’s no point in carrying on a conversation if you
can’t understand me”). This led to concerns from PM3 and
other participants that the spoken commands would not
work unless highly personalised to specific vocal gestures.
Following the ‘trying on the Glass’ activity, however, there
was a high level of success experienced by the participants
using the voice activation, including PM3, which incited a
sense of encouragement.