Designing for engagement: Using participatory design to develop a social robot to measure teen stress Emma J. Rose Elin A. Björling University of Washington Tacoma University of Washington Tacoma, WA Sea!lee, WA USA USA [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT technologies [51, 75, 81], researchers and designers need to consider how to design for engagement between people and While scholars in technical communication have examined on things [5]. As such, the methods, tools and approaches of UX theoretical concerns of post humanism, less work has focused on researchers and professionals need to take into account a wider designing for engaging experiences between humans and non- variety of factors and actors to attend to in the design process human agents like robots. In this research article, we present [61]. findings from a project investigating the possibility of designing Although the SIGDOC community has focused on designing a social robot to help measure teen stress. To explore design communication across a variety of domains, little work has possibilities, we conducted a series of participatory design specifically ventured into how to design interactions with social sessions with teens to envision the design of a social robot to robots. Studying how to design the interactions between humans measures stress. The findings from the study include how teens and robots is seen as qualitatively different from the field of react to existing robots, how teens conceptualize robots that human-computer interaction and therefore has spawned the sub might live in their schools through storyboarding and group field of human-robot interaction [26]. Scholars in technical discussion, and reactions to an emerging design of a low fidelity communication have considered the impact of theoretical robot. In our discussion, we reflect on implications for designing approaches of new materialism and post humanism to design social robots for and with teens, considerations for studying [44, 46, 61]; however, there is a lack of empirical work in our engaging relationships, and reflections on methodological field that examines the interactions between human and non- choices of participatory design. human agents, in the form of social robots, and how to design an engaging relationship between the two. CCS CONCEPTS In this research article, we present findings from a project • Human Centered Computing → Interaction design; investigating the possibility of designing a social robot to help Interaction design process and methods; Participatory design measure teen stress. Teens experience stress at higher rates than • Computer systems organization → External interfaces any other age group [41, 85]. However, there is a lack of accurate for robotics data to help researchers and schools assess how, when, and why KEYWORDS stress occurs. As a result, our interdisciplinary team embarked on project EMAR (Ecological Momentary Assessment Robot), to Participatory design, social robots, stress, adolescents consider the design for a robot that would interact and engage ACM Reference format: with teens at school to collect self-reported stress and mood data. In order to design an engaging experience between teens 1 INTRODUCTION and robots, we used a human-centered approach and Historically, usability and user experience methods have been participatory design methods to engage teens throughout the narrowly concerned with measuring efficiency, effectiveness, design process. and satisfaction in online experiences and workplace tools [57, In this research paper, we report the results of three design 72]. As technologies continue to move into all aspects of daily sessions early in the project that engaged teens in the life, including conversational agents [43] and wearable conceptualization of a social robot. We detail the research questions and the participatory design methods used to gather information from three groups of socially connected teens Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or (n=40). In each session, we asked teens to (1) design a robot that classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and would live in their school, (2) respond and discuss images of the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned existing robots, and (3) interact with a physically present, low by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, fidelity, robot prototype. The findings of this research inform requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions design considerations for our ongoing project and also can from [email protected]. inform other scholars interested in considering designing SIGDOC '17, August 11-13, 2017, Halifax, NS, Canada © 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to experiences for teens and robots. We conclude the article by ACM. ACM 978-1-4503-5160-7/17/08$15.00 focusing on the implications for designing for engaging https://doi.org/10.1145/3121113.3121212 SIGDOC 17, August 2017, Halifax, Nova Scotia CA Authors relationships between humans and robots and the considerations and messaging [69], thus using a digital format to gather data for the use and expansion of participatory design methods in this from them may increase the ecological validity of that data while context. reducing their response burden. Importantly, school based data collection regarding mental health in teens has been shown more effective and accurate than home based data collection [34]. 2. BACKGROUND Ecological momentary assessment and experience sampling In this section, we situate our research by providing background have been shown to be extremely successful in capturing data on the issue of teens and stress, the challenges of accurately from adolescents [20, 36, 68, 74]. However, capturing data measuring stress, and an overview of applications and repeatedly in a busy school setting requires both novelty and approaches for designing social robots and issues of engagement. engagement that moves beyond current research tools found in static, ordinary smart phones and tablets. Therefore, the 2.1 Teen stress challenge for accurately gathering data from teens in a school setting requires an approach that moves beyond just designing Although a great deal of research has been conducted in the field for individual use. The challenge is to consider how to design an of human-robot interaction (HRI) among children [32, 33, 37, 59], engaging experience for users in order to collect data adults [15, 66] and seniors [63, 79], very little is known about the longitudinally. relationship between teens and robots. Adolescents are a unique and vulnerable population, negatively affected by stress and 2.3 Designing for engagement mental health issues [2, 3, 22, 27, 40, 45, 62, 73, 77, 83]. Today’s adolescents experience more stress than any other age group [3, Early research in UX focused on evaluating a narrowly 42]. The adolescent brain is extremely vulnerable to the negative conceived notion of usability [72] and early conceptions of impacts of stress [2, 22] which have been shown to increase both usability were primarily concerned with issues of effectiveness, mental and physical illness [27, 45, 73, 83] and decrease learning efficiency, and satisfaction [28, 30]. However, as technologies [77]. Stress negatively affects teens at school. Eighty-three have grown into further areas of daily life, engaging for longer percent of teens report that school is a significant source of term relationships between people and products require different stress, and 34% predict that the next school year will be even considerations and approaches. In their work on investigating more stressful than the last [3]. Stress has been shown to impair long time interactions with relational agents, Bickmore and memory retrieval and associated learning of new material and Picard identify how relationships are “incrementally built and reduce cognitive flexibility and problem solving [77], thus maintained over a series of interactions that can potentially span dramatically affecting learning and retention. Increased a lifetime” [6, p.294] and what impact a relationship can have academic stress in high school students is also linked to when designing between computers and people. They identify substance abuse and risk-taking behavior [42]. three components of personal relationship management that are implicated during long term relationships (1) relational 2.2 The challenges of accurately measuring communication, (2) relational dynamics, and (3) relational stress with teens nonverbal behavior. Relational communication is made up of both propositional information and also social dialogue, which is Due to the concern about the negative impact of stress on teens, lacking in specific task-oriented language. Social dialogue, for many schools are interested in implementing programs and example, what is often referred to as “small talk” is integral to interventions to address the issue of stress [17, 21, 54, 71]. establishing rapport or maintaining relationships and therefore However, measuring the effects of these programs on stress is “simply engaging a user and keeping them engaged—even when challenging and limited, often relying on anecdotal assessment not performing a task—will help to