Championing Research Through Design in HRI

Paladyn, Journal of Behavioral Robotics

As more and more robots enter our social world, there is a strong need for further field studies of humanrobot interaction. Based on a two-year ethnographic study of the implementation of a South Korean socially assistive robot in Danish elderly care, this paper argues that empirical and ethnographic studies will enhance the understanding of the adaptation of robots in real-life settings. Furthermore, the paper emphasizes how users and the context of use matters to this adaptation, as it is shown that roboticists are unable to control how their designs are implemented and how the sociality of social robots is inscribed by its users in practice. This paper can be seen as a contribution to long-term studies of HRI. It presents the challenges of robot adaptation in practice and discusses the limitations of the present conceptual understanding of human-robot relations. The ethnographic data presented herein encourage a move away from static and linear descriptions of the implementation ...

Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C: …, 2004

Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2022

The field of human-robot interaction (HRI) research is multidisciplinary and requires researchers to understand diverse fields including computer science, engineering, informatics, philosophy, psychology, and more disciplines. However, it is hard to be an expert in everything. To help HRI researchers develop methodological skills, especially in areas that are relatively new to them, we conducted a virtual workshop, Workshop Your Study Design (WYSD), at the 2021 International Conference on HRI. In this workshop, we grouped participants with mentors, who are experts in areas like real-world studies, empirical lab studies, questionnaire design, interview, participatory design, and statistics. During and after the workshop, participants discussed their proposed study methods, obtained feedback, and improved their work accordingly. In this paper, we present 1) Workshop attendees’ feedback about the workshop and 2) Lessons that the participants learned during their discussions with mentor...

2019

Here we present the methodological principles and technologies, which compose the backbone of designing the i-Walk platform Human Robot Interaction (HRI) environment. The reported work builds upon experience gained from previous engagement with development of the multimodal HRI communication model of the MOBOT assistive robotic rollator and its end-user evaluation, leading to our enhanced methodology for identifying and prioritizing user needs as applied in our current HRI design approach. Emphasis is placed on adopting multimodal communication patterns from actual human-human interaction in the context of mobility rehabilitation, which may enrich human-robot communication by increasing the naturalness in interaction from the side of the robotic device by adding more "human" characteristics both in respect to understanding and reaction capabilities of the robot.

2021

Robots increasingly enter our everyday environment in an effort to fulfill people’s needs. Yet, users themselves are not as often included in the design of these technologies as co-designers. This paper seeks to provide an example of a long-term co-design methodology that amplifies older adults’ participation in the design of social robots, a technology that will directly impact them. We present seven different stages as examples of this methodology that build on each other to engage users as co-designers and discuss the methodology through research through design (RtD) evaluation criteria: process, invention, relevance, and extensibility. We have successfully deployed these seven stages over the course of a year in a home social robot co-design project with 28 older adults. We demonstrate the value of leveraging people’s lived technology experiences through co-design and research through design activities. CCS Concepts • Human-centered computing→ User studies.

International Journal of Architectural Computing, 2020

This study seeks to identify key aspects for increased integration of interactive robotics within the creative design process. Through its character as foundational research, the study aims to contribute to the advancement of new explorative design methods to support architects in their exploration of fabrication and assembly of an integrated performance-driven architecture. The article describes and investigates a proposed design framework for supporting an interactive human–robot design process. The proposed framework is examined through a 3-week architectural studio, with university master students exploring the design of a brick construction with the support of an interactive robotic platform. Evaluation of the proposed framework was done by triangulation of the authors’ qualitative user observations, quantitative logging of the students’ individual design processes, and through questionnaires completed after finishing the studies. The result suggests that interactive human–robo...

2009

PhD thesis is intended to describe an individual effort. In this respect, a thesis concerning Human-Robot Interaction is really a non sequitur. It can never happen without the collaboration between humans! I want to mention and thank a whole bunch in a particular, but largely insignificant, order. My parents, who have never stopped believing in me and have supported me in just about whatever I have tried to do: things like riding tri-and bicycles, flyfishing or diving in ponds, getting in the way from footballs, hockey-pucks, handballs, etc, or embarking on something really strange, like convincing other people that I am trying to study speaking robots. Helge Hüttenrauch my companion into the uncharted territory of Human-Robot Interaction. Elin Anna Topp, who brought things further by actually making robots do things for real. Erik Espmark, who turned the rather whimsical idea of a robot doll into true living art. Lars Oestreicher who provided many good ideas during the Cero projekt. Mikael Norman, who made invaluable efforts in the Cero project. Patric Jensfelt, who explained peculiar things about robots so that even I understood.

Frontiers in robotics and AI, 2024

We explore an alternative approach to the design of robots that deviates from the common envisionment of having one unified agent. What if robots are depicted as an agentic ensemble where agency is distributed over different components? In the project presented here, we investigate the potential contributions of this approach to creating entertaining and joyful human-robot interaction (HRI), which also remains comprehensible to human observers. We built a service robot-which takes care of plants as a Plant-Watering Robot (PWR)-that appears as a small ship controlled by a robotic captain accompanied by kinetic elements. The goal of this narrative design, which utilizes a distributed agency approach, is to make the robot entertaining to watch and foster its acceptance. We discuss the robot's design rationale and present observations from an exploratory study in two contrastive settings, on a university campus and in a care home for people with dementia, using a qualitative video-based approach for analysis. Our observations indicate that such a design has potential regarding the attraction, acceptance, and joyfulness it can evoke. We discuss aspects of this design approach regarding the field of elderly care, limitations of our study, and identify potential fields of use and further scopes for studies.

Social Studies of Science, 2020

In this study, we explore the constitution of user representations of robots in design practice. Using the results of ethnographic research in two robot laboratories, we show how user representations emerge in and are entangled with design activities. Our study speaks to the growing popularity of and investment in robotics, robots and other forms of artificial intelligence. Scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS) have shown that it is often difficult for designers and engineers to develop accurate ideas about potential users of such technologies. However, the social context of robots and design settings themselves have received significantly less attention. Based on our laboratory ethnographies, we argue that the practices in which engineers are engaged are important as they can shape the kind of user images designers create. To capture these dynamics, we propose two new concepts: ‘image-evoking activities’ as well as ‘user image landscape’. Our findings provide pertinent input for researchers, designers and policy-makers, as they raise questions with regards to contemporary fears of robots replacing humans, for the effectiveness of user involvement and participatory design, and for user studies in STS. If design activities co-constitute the user images that engineers develop, a greater awareness is needed specifically of the locales in which the design of robots and other types of technologies takes place.

… of the 2005 joint conference on …, 2005

The experience of "emotional tuning" with artefacts that are not merely static (a teapot), nor merely reactive (a VCR), but that are autonomous, physical objects with decision-making abilities, pro-active, dynamic and designed with the general purpose of engaging users in social interaction, is an intriguing issue for interaction design.