In this paper we explore how simple auditory/ verbal features of the spoken language, such as voice characteristics (pitch) and language cues (empathy/humor expression) influence the quality of interaction with a social robot receptionist. For our experiment two robot characters were created: Olivia, the more extrovert, exuberant, and humorous robot with a higher voice pitch and Cynthia, the more introvert, calmer and more serious robot with a lower voice pitch. Our results showed that the voice pitch seemed to have a strong influence on the way users rated the overall interaction quality, as well as the robot's appeal and overall enjoyment. Further, the humor appeared to improve the users' perception of task enjoyment, robot personality and speaking style while the empathy showed effects on the way users evaluated the robot's receptive behavior and the interaction ease. With our study, we would like to stress in particular the importance of voice pitch in human robot interaction and to encourage further research on this topic.

Abstract-. In this paper we present an experiment addressing the effect of voice pitch on the evaluation of a social robot receptionist. Twenty eight test participants interacted with two "female" robot characters: one with a high-pitched, exuberant voice, the other with a low-pitched, calm voice. Our results show that the high pitch robot was perceived significantly more attractive in terms of voice, behavior and personality. We also found that the increased level of the robot's attractiveness induced significantly better ratings on the overall enjoyment and overall interaction quality. With our study we would like to stress the importance of the voice, in general (and the voice pitch, in particular) in the social robot design and to encourage further research in this topic within the HCI (in particular HRI -Human Robot Interaction) community.

In non-game web applications, one of the problems in User Interface (UI) design is that not all users will perceive the UI as easy to use. If the users are unable to perceive the UI as easy to use, problems in user experience may arise, this is especially so for users using web applications for cloud-based chat and collaboration web services. In order to tackle this problem, this study will identify if the freedom of the user to customize his/her own UI is proportional to the user's perceived ease of use (PEOU) of the UI. A random sample of 50 participants aged 15 to 35 years were invited to use Dropbox™, Google Drive™ and Microsoft's OneDrive™, before being interviewed about their individual user experiences for each menu interface type. It was found that the ability of the user to customise own UI is linked to the user's sense of control over the UI. Since the sense of control over the UI is illustrated to directly impact perceived user efficiency levels, it is highly likely that the customisability is proportional to user's PEOU of the UI. Thus by developing a software that can allow both developers and users to collaborate and cooperate in the creation of user preferred UI design would be able to enhance user satisfaction.

In this paper we present the evaluation results of an exploratory study performed in an open environment with the robot receptionist Olivia. The main focus of the study was to analyze relationships between the robot's social skills and the perceived overall interaction quality, as well as to determine additional important interaction quality features with potential general validity. Our results show positive correlations between the investigated factors, as the ability to socialize with humans achieved the second highest correlation with the perceived interaction quality. One of the most relevant functional aspects for the interaction quality was found to be the ability to respond fast. Performance abilities, such as speech or object recognition were, surprisingly, considered less important. The voice pleasantness was regarded as one of the most important non-functional aspects being ranked higher than a nice physical appearance.