RESUMEN

We explore an alternative approach to the design of robots that deviates from the common envisionment of having one unified agent. What if robots are depicted as an agentic ensemble where agency is distributed over different components? In the project presented here, we investigate the potential contributions of this approach to creating entertaining and joyful human-robot interaction (HRI), which also remains comprehensible to human observers. We built a service robot-which takes care of plants as a Plant-Watering Robot (PWR)-that appears as a small ship controlled by a robotic captain accompanied by kinetic elements. The goal of this narrative design, which utilizes a distributed agency approach, is to make the robot entertaining to watch and foster its acceptance. We discuss the robot's design rationale and present observations from an exploratory study in two contrastive settings, on a university campus and in a care home for people with dementia, using a qualitative video-based approach for analysis. Our observations indicate that such a design has potential regarding the attraction, acceptance, and joyfulness it can evoke. We discuss aspects of this design approach regarding the field of elderly care, limitations of our study, and identify potential fields of use and further scopes for studies.

RESUMEN

Care of ageing adults has become a dominant field of application for assistive robot technologies, promising support for ageing adults residing in care homes and staff, in dealing with practical routine tasks and providing social and emotional relieve. A time consuming and human intensive necessity is the maintenance of high hygiene quality in care homes. Robotic vacuum cleaners have been proven effective for doing the job elsewhere, but-in the context of care homes-are counterproductive for residents' well-being and do not get accepted. This is because people with dementia manifest their agency in more implicit and emotional ways, while making sense of the world around them. Starting from these premises, we explored how a zoomorphic designed vacuum cleaner could better accommodate the sensemaking of people with dementia. Our design reconceptualises robotic vacuum cleaners as a cat-like robot, referring to a playful behaviour and appearance to communicate a non-threatening and familiar role model. Data from an observational study shows that residents responded positively to our prototype, as most of them engaged playfully with it as if it was a pet or a cat-like toy, for example luring it with gestures. Some residents simply ignored the robot, indicating that it was not perceived as frightening or annoying. The level of activity influenced reactions; residents ignored our prototype if busy with other occupations, which proves that it did not cause significant disturbance. We further report results from focus group sessions with formal and informal caregivers who discussed a video prototype of our robot. Caregivers encouraged us to enhance the animal like characteristics (in behaviour and materiality) even further to result in richer interactions and provoke haptic pleasure but also pointed out that residents should not mistake the robot for a real cat.

RESUMEN

When assessing the value of visualizations, researchers traditionally focus on efficiency, comprehension, or insight. However, analyzing successful data physicalizations leads to a deep appreciation for hedonic qualities. Informed by the role of emotion in psychology, art, design, marketing, and HCI, we argue for an expanded definition of value, applicable to all forms of data visualization.

RESUMEN

Information visualization has become a popular tool to facilitate sense-making, discovery and communication in a large range of professional and casual contexts. However, evaluating visualizations is still a challenge. In particular, we lack techniques to help understand how visualizations are experienced by people. In this paper we discuss the potential of the Elicitation Interview technique to be applied in the context of visualization. The Elicitation Interview is a method for gathering detailed and precise accounts of human experience. We argue that it can be applied to help understand how people experience and interpret visualizations as part of exploration and data analysis processes. We describe the key characteristics of this interview technique and present a study we conducted to exemplify how it can be applied to evaluate data representations. Our study illustrates the types of insights this technique can bring to the fore, for example, evidence for deep interpretation of visual representations and the formation of interpretations and stories beyond the represented data. We discuss general visualization evaluation scenarios where the Elicitation Interview technique may be beneficial and specify what needs to be considered when applying this technique in a visualization context specifically.

Asunto(s)

RESUMEN

Media facades (often characterized as a building's digital skin) are public displays that substitute dynamic details and information for usually static structures. SMSlingshot is a media facade system at the confluence of art, architecture, and technology design in the context of urban human-computer interaction. It represents a participative approach to public displays that enlivens public spaces and fosters civic and social dialogue as an alternative to advertising and service-oriented information displays. Observations from SMSlingshot's implementation at festival exhibitions provide insight into the roles of scale, distance, and the spatial situation of media facade contexts. The lessons learned apply to most public-display situations and will be useful for designers and developers of this new medium in urban spaces.

Asunto(s)