Development of a new set of Heuristics for the evaluation of Human-Robot Interaction in industrial settings: Heuristics Robots Experience (HEUROBOX)

Abstract

Humans and robots will increasingly have to work together in the new industrial context. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the User Experience, Technology Acceptance, and overall wellbeing to achieve a smoother and more satisfying interaction while obtaining the maximum performance possible out of it. For this reason, it is essential to analyze these interactions to enhance User Experience. The heuristic evaluation is an easy-to-use, low-cost method that can be applied at different stages of a design process in an iterative manner. Despite these advantages, there is rarely a list of heuristics in the current literature that evaluates Human-Robot interactions both from a User Experience, Technology Acceptance, and Human-Centered approach. Such an approach should integrate key aspects like safety, trust, and perceived safety, ergonomics and workload, inclusivity, and multimodality, as well as robot characteristics and functionalities. Therefore, a new set of heuristics, namely, the HEUROBOX tool, is presented in this work in the form of the HEUROBOX tool to help practitioners and researchers in the assessment of human-robot systems in industrial environments. The HEUROBOX tool clusters design guidelines and methodologies as a logic list of heuristics for human-robot interaction and comprises four categories: Safety, Ergonomics, Functionality, and Interfaces. They include 84 heuristics in the basic evaluation, while the advanced evaluation lists a total of 228 heuristics in order to adapt the tool to the evaluation of different industrial requirements. Finally, the set of new heuristics has been validated by experts using the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire and the categories has been prioritized in order of their importance in the evaluation of Human-Robot Interaction through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).

Managing social-educational robotics for students with autism spectrum disorder through business model canvas and customer discovery

“…According to Johnson (2003) , “the universality of the robotics phenomenon” (p. 16) implies that robotics education is effective for all students regardless of their unique learning styles and diverse backgrounds. It is critical to investigate how children with varying needs and abilities engage in robotics to develop and implement responsive educational programs ( Alimisis, 2013 ; Apraiz et al, 2023 ) to meet their needs.…”

“…Having examined the perspectives of teachers co-working with robots and ASD students interacting with social robots in the above sections, we now focus on the robotic companies’ perspectives. Critics of educational-social robotics have argued that emotional bonding created between humans and anthropomorphic robots can make people vulnerable to emotional manipulation ( Zhang et al, 2019 ; Arora, Arora, Jentjens et al, 2022 ; Arora et al, 2022 ; Sammonds et al, 2022 ; Yepez et al, 2022 ; Apraiz et al, 2023 ; Roesler, 2023 ) and can create ethical challenges. Regulation and ethics are interrelated and are essential to regulate robotic frameworks.…”

“…Earlier standards in robotics technology separated robots from human operators for safety concerns through the European legislative via the Machine Directive 2006/42/EC, ISO 10218 (robots and robotic devices, and safety requirements for industrial robots Part 1 and 2), among other laws ( Danks and London, 2017 ; Apraiz et al, 2023 ). European harmonized standards do not cover robots in educational-social spheres, autonomous vehicles, and/or additive manufacturing.…”