Aalborg Universitet Domestic Robots and the Dream of Automation: Understanding Human Interaction and Intervention Schneiders, Eike; Kanstrup, Anne Marie; Kjeldskov, Jesper; Skov, Mikael B. Published in: CHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems DOI (link to publication from Publisher): https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445629 Creative Commons License CC BY 4.0 Publication date: 2021 Document Version Accepted author manuscript, peer reviewed version Link to publication from Aalborg University Citation for published version (APA): Schneiders, E., Kanstrup, A. M., Kjeldskov, J., & Skov, M. B. (2021). Domestic Robots and the Dream of Automation: Understanding Human Interaction and Intervention. In CHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths (pp. 241:1-241:13). 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Domestic Robots and the Dream of Automation: Understanding Human Interaction and Intervention Eike Schneiders Anne Marie Kanstrup Aalborg University, Dept. of Computer Science Aalborg University, Dept. of Planning Aalborg, Denmark Aalborg, Denmark [email protected] [email protected] Jesper Kjeldskov Mikael B. Skov Aalborg University, Dept. of Computer Science Aalborg University, Dept. of Computer Science Aalborg, Denmark Aalborg, Denmark [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT 1 INTRODUCTION Domestic robots such as vacuum cleaners or lawnmowers are be- People increasingly encounter and interact with robots as these coming popular consumer products in private homes, but while become pervasive in today’s societies. The variety of contexts in current HCI research on domestic robots has highlighted for exam- which robots can be encountered (e.g. industrial for manufacturing, ple personalisation, long-term efects, or design guidelines, little at- tutoring and education) highlights the importance of a well-founded tention has been paid to automation. To address this, we conducted understanding of how people interact with this type of technology. a qualitative study with 24 participants in private households using The current trend towards an increase in the numbers of robots interviews, contextual technology tours, and robot deployment. has been estimated to grow from 17.2 million to 33.1 million units Through thematic analysis we identifed three themes related to 1) sold from 2020 to 2025 [33]. This has prompted researchers in work routines and automation, 2) domestic robot automation and HCI to investigate and study interaction with robots in numerous the physical environment, as well as 3) interaction and breakdown settings. As examples, HCI research has studied robots in shopping intervention. We present an empirical understanding of how task malls [16, 21, 24], museums [37, 39, 49], exhibitions [29, 32], the automation using domestic robots can be implemented in the home. education sector [8, 26, 34, 36] as well as in the domestic space [12, Lastly, we discuss our fndings in relation to existing literature and 20, 35, 38, 43, 44]. highlight three opportunities for improved task automation using Automation of work tasks (trivial, complex, repeated, etc.) has domestic robots for future research. been one of the major drivers behind the widespread difusion of robots (i.e. the removal of manual tasks [2]). This includes examples CCS CONCEPTS like teleoperation with partial autonomy (e.g. [17, 23]), elder-care (e.g. [18, 19]) autonomous tutoring systems (e.g. [6, 8, 9]) or col- • Human-centered computing Field studies; Empirical stud- ! laboration with (semi-)autonomous collaborative robots (cobots) ies in HCI. in industry (e.g. [28, 31]). For example, Davison et al. [8] found that automation using robots in the tutoring context, is a feasi- KEYWORDS ble way to personalise the learning experience for children. They human-robot interaction; domestic robots; domestic robot automa- demonstrated that children can progress unsupervised through the tion; interventions to domestic robot breakdown curriculum using an automated tutoring robot. Hanheide et al. [18] showed that an autonomous robot in an elder care home can de- ACM Reference Format: velop a model, providing the right information at appropriate time Eike Schneiders, Anne Marie Kanstrup, Jesper Kjeldskov, and Mikael B. and place to the elderly, thereby gradually increasing the amount of Skov. 2021. Domestic Robots and the Dream of Automation: Understanding successful interaction over time. However, this focus on automation Human Interaction and Intervention. In CHI Conference on Human Factors appears to have less research interest for robots in the home. in Computing Systems (CHI ’21), May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan. ACM, Domestic robots like vacuum cleaners or lawnmowers are becom- New York, NY, USA, 13 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445629 ing popular consumer products, for example in 2020 11% of Danish households had a vacuum robot, and this number is constantly increasing [40]. HCI research has investigated domestic robots over Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed a decade (e.g. [10, 11, 14, 43, 46, 47]), and have focused on phys- for proft or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation ical personalisation [43, 46], change of cleaning behaviour [12], on the frst page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM importance of the introduction to the technology [14], long-term must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specifc permission and/or a efects [11], or the development of design principles or recommen- fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. dations [10, 46]. But somewhat surprisingly, there has been limited CHI ’21, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan focus on automation for domestic robots in HCI research, even © 2021 Association for Computing Machinery. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-8096-6/21/05...$15.00 though that many (or perhaps even most) domestic robots aim to https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445629 CHI ’21, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan Schneiders et al. automate domestic work tasks like mowing the lawn or vacuum cleaning, transforming the cleaning task to a social activity includ- cleaning. Studies have already highlighted the importance of efec- ing the entire household. While the vacuuming robot investigated tive automation of smart appliances, such as heating or washing was used while the users were co-located, it opened up for the machines, in the home (e.g. [5, 27, 50]), yet research considering possibility to complete other tasks in the household such as dusting automation of domestic robots are few. Yang et al. [50] show that while the foor was being taken care of. Thereby the domestic for successful automation in the home to be implemented several robot increased the efciency of the cleaning routine. Further, the other prerequisite have to be met. These include an interconnec- vacuum robot changed the households cleaning routines from a tivity with other devices, the users home environment, as well as planned to an opportunistic activity, in which the user activated reliability of the device in question. A recent example investiga- the robot whenever the need arises, thereby leading to a higher tion efective automation of tasks through robots in the domestic degree of fexibility. The impact of the Roomba on the household settings is Verne [47]. They investigated the adaptation of lawn was further expressed by the fact that two of the three families who mowing robots and how this afected old and new work tasks in received the Roomba got entirely rid of their classical vacuum by the garden. Verne calls for further research on work and adaptation the end of the study. of robots in domestic settings. Sung et al. [45] investigated the type of user of the domestic To address automation and domestic robots, we conducted a robot, as well as typical cleaning and non-cleaning related use- qualitative study with 24 participants, carried out as interviews, cases in the home. They concluded that over 90% of the users had a contextual technology tours [1] as well as robot deployment. We higher degree (undergraduate or graduate degree), no diference in identify three primary themes related to 1) work routines and au- adoption of the Roomba and gender could be identifed. Further, it tomation, 2) domestic robot automation and the physical environ- has been investigated how people physically adapt their Roomba, ment, and 3) interaction and breakdown intervention. Based on thereby making use of personalisation [43, 46]. these we discuss several implications for future research. Our work An alternative approach is investigated by Elara et al. [10]. They aims to make the following contributions: a) An empirical under- focus on a robot centred approach, and instead of adapting the robot standing of domestic robots in private households with particular to the user’s needs, they investigate how users can change their focus on automation, and b) opportunities and design implications behaviour and environment to be more robot inclusive.