User Experience in Social Robots

Abstract

Social robots are increasingly penetrating our daily lives. They are used in various domains, such as healthcare, education, business, industry, and culture. However, introducing this technology for use in conventional environments is not trivial. For users to accept social robots, a positive user experience is vital, and it should be considered as a critical part of the robots’ development process. This may potentially lead to excessive use of social robots and strengthen their diffusion in society. The goal of this study is to summarize the extant literature that is focused on user experience in social robots, and to identify the challenges and benefits of UX evaluation in social robots. To achieve this goal, the authors carried out a systematic literature review that relies on PRISMA guidelines. Our findings revealed that the most common methods to evaluate UX in social robots are questionnaires and interviews. UX evaluations were found out to be beneficial in providing early feedback and consequently in handling errors at an early stage. However, despite the importance of UX in social robots, robot developers often neglect to set UX goals due to lack of knowledge or lack of time. This study emphasizes the need for robot developers to acquire the required theoretical and practical knowledge on how to perform a successful UX evaluation.

Care Robotics: An Assessment of Professional Perception in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…According to previous literature review studies, researchers prefer questionnaire-based designs (around 80% of the literature reviewed and interviews). Hardly any studies were found on real-time, real user experience of the process [ 44 , 45 ].…”

Social Robots in Education for Long-Term Human-Robot Interaction : Socially Supportive Behaviour of Robotic Tutor for Creating Robo-Tangible Learning Environment in a Guided Discovery Learning Interaction

“…It is possible to find similar solutions in intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs), but the explicit agentic nature of robots often brings additional options and problems (32). It has been observed that students learn more efficiently when they are given the right emotional support approach, help with meta-cognitive learning techniques, know when to take a break, and encourage correct assistance-seeking behaviour, among other things (33). Combined with appropriate gestures, acceptable and congruent gaze behaviour, expressive and attention-guiding behaviours, and timely nonverbal behaviours, these actions boost students' retention and learning (34).…”

Does the Personality of Consumers Influence the Assessment of the Experience of Interaction with Social Robots?

“…When dealing with these issues, three contributions are made to the literature. First, although previous studies have assessed the HRI experience (a review is proposed by Shourmasti et al [ 22 ]), our research is among the first to make the assessment using a structural model after experiencing interactions with a real social robot in a front-office service environment. Although there are some precedents in hospitality, such as Tung and Au [ 23 ], who studied the reviews published by customers on TripAdvisor, Booking.com, etc., where they rated their experience of staying in hotels serviced by robots, to the best of our knowledge there are no studies of direct experiences that analyse the five customer personalities.…”