skip to main content


Title: Robots for Connection: A Co-Design Study with Adolescents
Adolescents isolated at home during the COVID19 pandemic lockdown are more likely to feel lonely and in need of social connection. Social robots may provide a much needed social interaction without the risk of contracting an infection. In this paper, we detail our co-design process used to engage adolescents in the design of a social robot prototype intended to broadly support their mental health. Data gathered from our four week design study of nine remote sessions and interviews with 16 adolescents suggested the following design requirements for a home robot: (1) be able to enact a set of roles including a coach, companion, and confidant; (2) amplify human-to-human connection by supporting peer relationships; (3) account for data privacy and device ownership. Design materials are available in open-access, contributing to best practices for the field of Human-Robot Interaction.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1734100
PAR ID:
10386132
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
2022 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)
Page Range / eLocation ID:
578 to 583
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Technical and practical challenges in human-robot interaction (HRI) research often involve facilitating sustained long-term interactions, fostering engagement with multiple individuals, and taking place in-the-wild. The home environment embodies all three challenges, as multiple family members regularly engage with technology at home. In our research, we take a family-centered approach to understand, design, and evaluate how social robots can take part in setting and maintaining family routines to support long-term HRI. In our prior work, we conducted participatory design sessions with children and families to understand their preferences for having social robots in their home. We then designed interactions for robot-facilitated routines. Finally, our future work will include field studies investigating how robot-facilitated routines can support long-term engagement in family-robot interactions and facilitate connections. 
    more » « less
  2. Child-robot interactions in educational, developmental, and health domains are widely explored, but little is known about how families perceive the presence of a social robot in their home environment and its participation in day-to-day activities. To close this gap, we conducted a participatory design (PD) study with six families, with children aged 10--12, to examine how families perceive in-home social robots participating in shared activities. Our analysis identified three main themes: (1) the robot can have a range of roles in the home as a companion or as an assistant; (2) family members have different preferences for how they would like to interact with the robot in group or personal interactions; and (3) families have privacy, confidentiality, and ethical concerns regarding a social robot's presence in the home. Based on these themes and existing literature, we provide guidelines for the future interaction design of in-home social robots for children. 
    more » « less
  3. Today’s teens will most likely be the first generation to spend a lifetime living and interacting with both mechanical and social robots. Although human-robot interaction has been explored in children, adults, and seniors, examination of teen-robot interaction has been minimal. Using human-centered design, our team is developing a social robot to gather stress and mood data from teens in a public high school. As part of our preliminary design stage, we conducted a interaction pilot study in the wild to explore and capture teens’ initial interactions with a lowfidelity social robot prototype. We observed strong engagement and expressions of empathy from teens during our qualitative, interaction studies. 
    more » « less
  4. Today’s teens will most likely be the first generation to spend a lifetime living and interacting with both mechanical and social robots. Although human-robot interaction has been explored in children, adults, and seniors, examination of teen-robot interaction has been minimal. In this paper, we provide evidence that teenrobot interaction is a unique area of inquiry and designing for teens is categorically different from other types of human-robot interaction. Using human-centered design, our team is developing a social robot to gather stress and mood data from teens in a public high school. To better understand teen-robot interaction, we conducted an interaction study in the wild to explore and capture teens’ interactions with a low-fidelity social robot prototype. Then, through group interviews we gathered data regarding their perceptions about social robots. Although we anticipated minimal engagement due to the low fidelity of our prototype, teens showed strong engagement and lengthy interactions. Additionally, teens expressed thoughtful articulations of how a social robot could be emotionally supportive. We conclude the paper by discussing future areas for consideration when designing for teen-robot interaction. 
    more » « less
  5. Homophily, a person's bias for having ties with people who are similar to themselves in social ways, has a vital role in creating a social connection between people. Studying homophily in human-robot interactions can provide valuable insights for improving those interactions. In this paper, we investigate whether similar interests have a positive effect on a human-robot interaction similar to the positive impact it can have on human-human interaction. We explore whether sharing similar interests can affect trust. This experiment consisted of two NAO robots; each gave differing speeches. For each participant, their national origin was asked in the pre-questionnaire, and during the sessions, one of the robot's topics was either personalized or not to their national origin. Since one robot shared a familiar topic, we expected to observe bonding between humans and the robot. We gathered data from a post-questionnaire and analyzed them. The results summarize the hypotheses here. We conclude that homophily plays a significant role in human-robot interaction, affecting trust in a robot partner. 
    more » « less