engaging older adults in design of robots: a developing
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Engaging Older Adults in Design of Robots: A Developing Human-Robot Interaction Research
Program
Travis Kadylak, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Research Associate
Human Factors & Aging Laboratory
Engaging Older Adults in Design of RobotsGeneral methods
• Surveys/Questionnaires
• Interviews/Focus Groups
• Mixed Methods
• Human Factors Evaluations
• Critical Task Analyses
• Participatory Design
Examples from our current research• Social, assistive, and soft robots
• Mobile manipulators, mobile robots for wayfinding, soft robots, robot companions
• Older adults with diverse needs and capabilities
Overview of HRI Research Interests
• How can we ensure the usability of assistive robots for individuals with disabilities?
• How can we make robots enjoyable for older adults to interact with?
• Development of trust and companionship between users and robots• Understanding the role of specific robot social characteristics and abilities
• System feedback and social cues
• Nonverbal communication
• Verbal communication
How do we facilitate the development of human-robot trust?
What role does robot social abilities and perceived sociability play?
Conceptual Model
Robot Socialness Characteristics
Emotions
Effective Verbal/Sound-based
Communication
Nonverbal Gestures/Communication
Distinct PersonalityPerceived
Sociability
Trust
Intention to Use
Robot Socialness and Sociability
Robot Socialness and Sociability
Preliminary Results
How do older adults’ preferences for robot appearance (machine-like to human-like) vary by task type (e.g., ADL,
IADL, EADL)? Bayles et al
Studies often examine a. one robot b. one task c. one robot and many tasks or d. multiple robots with multiple tasks
Contradiction in findings Older adults prefer robots with human-like attributes (Prakash & Rogers 2015) while others prefer machine-like (Pino et al., 2015)
A Mixed Method Study
Three key task-types (ADL, IADL, EADL)
Multiple Methods
Multiple robot form factors
Older Adults Talk Robots: A Mixed Method Virtual Focus Group Study
• Investigating a diverse sample of older adults’ attitudes and perceptions towards mobile/assistive robots and social/companion robots
• Broad/Diverse Sample of Older Adults:
• Older adults with disabilities
• Older adults with mobility disability
• Older adults with sensor impairment
• Older adults with mild cognitive impairment
• Mixed Method Approach
• Pre/post questionnaires
• Virtual focus groups
• Virtual card sorting
Exploring the potential of Hello Robot’s Stretch for older adults with mobility disabilities in the LIFE Home
• Stretch was designed to support individuals with disabilities
• To ensure usability and ease of use in the home for older adults with mobility disabilities,
we performed human factors evaluations
• Identify potential facilitators/barriers to use/adoption
• Initial unboxing
• Feedback to possibly support future instructional materials
• 50+ trials of user testing and critical task analyses• Manipulated 17 different types of objects/environmental features
• complexity of subtasks
• number of errors
• time-spent manipulating the object
• informal qualitative feedback
• Make potential design recommendations/developments (e.g., novel end-effector
prototypes)
• Novel end-effector hook
Ideas for Robot Feedback/Socialness?
• Social distancing/COVID prompted physicians to look into remote healthcare solutions to improve healthcare quality and accessibility
• One solution: soft teleoperated robots
• stationed at user’s home environment
• controlled remotely by a healthcare provider
• On-demand high quality videos and images for diagnosis and treatment
• Light object manipulation
• What are soft robots?
• The material makeup inspired by octopus tentacles and elephant trunks
• Might better suited for human interaction as they absorb rather than transmit any impact with an external object
Soft and Dexterous Service Robot Configurations to Support Healthcare at Home for Older AdultsFunding: Jump ARCHES – Healthcare Engineering Systems Center
PI: Girish Krishnan (ISE), Wendy Rogers (Kinesiology and Community Health), and Dr. Robert Riech (OSF Healthcare)
Soft and Dexterous Service Robot Configurations to Support Healthcare at Home for Older AdultsFunding: Jump ARCHES – Healthcare Engineering Systems Center
PI: Girish Krishnan (ISE), Wendy Rogers (Kinesiology and Community Health), and Dr. Robert Riech (OSF Healthcare)
Purpose • Design, fabricate, and test a soft robot with a camera at its distal end and assess its ability to
autonomously navigate towards an abscess, wound or any other specified area of the older adults
Participatory Design with Multiple Groups of Stakeholders Healthcare Professions
• Healthcare use-case • Monitoring wounds• Dressing wounds
• Robot control• Autonomy preferences• User Interfaces
• Information Communication/Data Visualization
Older Adults/Patients • Use-cases/acceptances
• Facilitators/Barriers • Privacy features• Soft Robot Socialness and System Feedback
• Development of trust
Wayfinding Assistance for the Visually Impaired via Mobile RoboticsPIs: Katie Driggs-Campbell & Wendy A. Rogers
• Currently available tools and technology for wayfinding are fairly limited• The most commonly used tool are white canes• Guide dogs (which are uncommon)• Tactile maps (which tend to be inaccurate, unreliable, and not user-friendly)
• Providing a robot guide that could facilitate wayfinding in a variety of environments would significantly improve the quality of life and independence
• Three-Phased Interview (Inductive Participatory Design) Obtain in-depth information about navigation needs for indoor environments
Explore Ideas for supportive devices (independent of robots, just in general)
Explore their reactions to different features and communication options for our robot prototypes
Value of Research with Older Adults for Robot Design
Improved usability
Improved design
Increased safety & acceptance
Promote potential benefits: Aging in place
