User perception of the pet robots

Joo Hyun Park, Han Young Ryoo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate the user perception of the pet robots. For an in-depth investigation on the users’ needs and evaluation of the pet robots, a focus group interview and a survey were conducted. The participants were first given a pet robot to have some experience with it, and then a focus group interview followed to talk about their thoughts and opinions about the pet robot. Out of all the topics that were discussed, shape, texture, color, size and screen have been selected as main subjects. The users’ opinions were then organized into pros, cons and needs per subject. After that, a survey was conducted with regard to the evaluation of the appearance of the pet robot and the emotions. The appearance evaluation was composed of the first impression, shape, size and weight while the emotion evaluation was executed by using the emotional words. In order to have a detailed analysis on these five evaluation items, a total of eight types of users, male and female in a single-person household, male, working mom and housewife with small children, and male, working mom and housewife with grownup children, have been compared. From the integrated results of the focus group interview and the survey, six implications of the pet robot have been drawn. This research has a significance that it suggests directions of the pet robots that the users actually desire through detailed analysis on the user experiences and emotions with the pet robot. The results of this research will be a useful tool in developing and evaluating the pet robots.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)493-504
Number of pages12
JournalAsia Life Sciences
Issue number1
StatePublished - 2018

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by Industrial Technology Innovation Program (Design Technology Innovation Program) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MoTIE, korea) under grant Number 10065470.

Publisher Copyright:
© Rushing Water Publishers Ltd. 2018.

Keywords

  • Appearance
  • Emotional words
  • Pet robot
  • User perception

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