TY - JOUR
T1 - Participatory Design, Development, and Testing of Assistive Health Robots with Older Adults
T2 - An International Four-year Project
AU - Gasteiger, Norina
AU - Ahn, Ho Seok
AU - Lee, Christopher
AU - Lim, Jongyoon
AU - MaCdonald, Bruce A.
AU - Kim, Geon Ha
AU - Broadbent, Elizabeth
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was a collaborative effort between the Centre for Automation and Robotic Engineering Sciences, the University of Auckland, New Zealand, Ewha Womans University, South Korea, Sungkyunkwan University, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Robocare, and WEDO. The project was supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE, Korea) under the Industrial Technology Innovation Program. Funders played no role in data collection, interpretation or reporting.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.
PY - 2022/9/8
Y1 - 2022/9/8
N2 - Participatory design includes stakeholders in the development of products intended to solve real-life challenges. Involving end users in the design of robots is vital for developing effective, useful, acceptable and user-friendly products that meet expectations, needs, and preferences. This four-year international project developed and evaluated a home-based robot for mood stabilization and cognitive improvement in older adults with mild cognitive impairment and age-related health needs. The daily-care robot was developed in collaboration with experts, carers, relatives, and older adults, through six phases. Two phases were dedicated to cognitive stimulation games. This paper provides a summary of the participatory design and mixed-methods evaluation processes undertaken to develop, refine, and test the robot. The final robot and games were acceptable to older adults, and useful for delivering stimulating activities and providing reminders for medication, health and wellbeing checks. Personalization is required to optimize human-robot interaction, and imagery and speech should be consistent with local users. Functions should be personalizable to accommodate individual health needs and preferences. This project highlights the importance of participatory design and testing robotics in end-user environments, as technical issues associated with long-term use were uncovered. Recommendations for future development and the design of assistive health robots are made.
AB - Participatory design includes stakeholders in the development of products intended to solve real-life challenges. Involving end users in the design of robots is vital for developing effective, useful, acceptable and user-friendly products that meet expectations, needs, and preferences. This four-year international project developed and evaluated a home-based robot for mood stabilization and cognitive improvement in older adults with mild cognitive impairment and age-related health needs. The daily-care robot was developed in collaboration with experts, carers, relatives, and older adults, through six phases. Two phases were dedicated to cognitive stimulation games. This paper provides a summary of the participatory design and mixed-methods evaluation processes undertaken to develop, refine, and test the robot. The final robot and games were acceptable to older adults, and useful for delivering stimulating activities and providing reminders for medication, health and wellbeing checks. Personalization is required to optimize human-robot interaction, and imagery and speech should be consistent with local users. Functions should be personalizable to accommodate individual health needs and preferences. This project highlights the importance of participatory design and testing robotics in end-user environments, as technical issues associated with long-term use were uncovered. Recommendations for future development and the design of assistive health robots are made.
KW - assistive robots
KW - cognitive robots
KW - gerontechnology
KW - HCI design and evaluation methods
KW - human computer interaction (HCI)
KW - Human-centered computing
KW - human-robot interaction
KW - Participatory design
KW - usability testing
KW - user perspective
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141085733&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3533726
DO - 10.1145/3533726
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85141085733
SN - 2573-9522
VL - 11
JO - ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction
JF - ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction
IS - 4
M1 - 45
ER -
