Julia Fink's public PhD thesis defense

Domestic robots, such as vacuum cleaning robots, are nowadays widely available on the consumer market. As such, robots have begun entering people's homes and daily lives, but still little is known about human-robot interaction (HRI) in households, especially concerning the long-term. During this PhD, we investigated the dynamics of HRI in domestic environments. We first present findings of a 6-month ethnographic study of nine households that were using Roomba vacuum cleaning robots. Why did only 3 of the 9 households lastingly integrate the robot into their cleaning routine? What social interaction did the robot provoke? How did people's perception of the robot change over time? Then, based on the findings of this explorative study, we proceeded by developing our own domestic robot prototype, called "Ranger". This robot aims to motivate young children to tidy up their toys. We brought the robot to 14 families and tested which type of robot behavior (proactive vs. reactive) better encourages children to tidy up. In a follow-up experiment in the lab, we further explored how children perceive Ranger when it shows unexpected behavior, for instance, when it disobeys to a command. Did children attribute intentionality to the robot? Is such a manipulation of robot behavior able to increase engagement? Our findings hold implications for the design of interactive robots for children. Moreover, they emphasize the importance of research in ecologically valid settings in order to obtain a better understanding of HRI, advance further the design of user-oriented robots and foster the long-term acceptance of these devices.