Designing Social Robots as Embodied Mediators in Education : the Potential of Participatory Design

Abstract

In the last decades, robotic research and development started to aim beyond industrial applications and focus on designing social robots. In this transitional era of Robotics, some aspects of their design seem to need reconsideration, particularly the embodiment dimension. The participatory design approach has been implemented successfully in designing products and processes related to humans, with a user-centered methodology, including the stakeholders in the early design stages. This work presents two cases of participatory design implementation in social assistive robots development. In the case of the STIMEY robot, a human-like toy-sized robot for students, an extensive participatory design process took place with qualitative focus group discussion (127 stakeholders). A deductive qualitative content analysis approach led to five combinations of dimensions used to design a SAR, which could be considered general design guidelines. In the case of the DAISY robot, a flower-like robot for students with autism, the participatory design was intended to define part of the features and characteristics of the robot. The researchers decided on the rest of the design issues based on the relative educational theories. This combinational approach made it possible to quickly and thoroughly address all design issues and come up with a unique and defined final choice.In both cases, the evaluation of the prototype robots through a task-oriented robot-assisted learning sequence indicated that participants endorsed the final design of the robots for physical interventions. The different implementations of participatory design in the above two cases could show the adaptability and the potential of the participatory method in the design process of social robots' appearance, physical presence and embodiment.