Strange Machines : Robot sociality as a challenge for human-centred design

Abstract

In the recent decade, so-called social robots have garnered significant academic interest. Technology and design researchers have been tasked with envisioning, testing, and evaluating the potential for robots to address societal challenges, which often involves the discovery of entirely new application domains. Through human-centred design (HCD) research, various collaborative and exploratory approaches can be undertaken to generate knowledge about the possibilities of social robots to aid humans. A key aspect of this technology is that these robots are not primarily intended as tools but as social interaction partners. As a result, they differ significantly from other technologies, and the design process must account for this unique aspect of sociality.

This interdisciplinary thesis is at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI) and ethnomethodology. The goal is threefold: to explore a novel application context for social robotics, to understand robot sociality, and to examine the challenge this sociality poses for human-centred design (HCD) practices. I integrate findings across five publications to understand social robots as a design subject and a technology. Three publications contribute early-stage concept ideation studies for HCD with the aim to explore the potential of social robots to encourage the societal participation of youth. Two publications contribute theoretical and empirical knowledge about human-robot interaction (HRI) and robot sociality from the perspective of situated action, investigating HRI through Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (EMCA). The key finding from design studies is that youth struggled to connect societal participation with social robots but viewed objectivity and neutrality as potential robot strengths. A key finding from EMCA studies is the conceptualization of <i>feature sociality</i>, distinct from the <i>fundamental sociality</i> of humans. Feature sociality refers to designer’s adaptations of fundamental sociality into concrete design features. Moreover, I highlight the striking difference between the designer’s vision of interaction and the actual situated interaction, and that the effectiveness of these technologies relies on a deeper understanding of situated HRI. To address this, I propose that early-stage design adopt the study of situated HRI through what I have termed the Discovery-Based Approach (DBA).