Who do you want to talk to? User-centered Design for human-like Robot Faces

Abstract

Having a social robot as interaction partner will increase within the next years. In public spaces robots are already tested as information guide and assistance. However, the barrier of talking to a robot is still existent and appearance plays an important role for first contact. If robots are perceived as friendly and trustworthy, it might be easier to start talking to them. In this paper, we want to investigate the idea of a user-centered robot face design. We want to figure out, if users like designing robot faces on their own, how the faces are designed and perceived afterwards. The pilot study showed an open-minded attitude of participants towards the design and overall users were satisfied with their created faces and enjoyed talking to the robot afterwards. The results showed a diverse outcome of created face models and most of the faces were perceived as felicitous. The pilot study could give a first overview how potential users can be involved into the development and design process to find out about preferences.