Design not Lost in Translation: A Case Study of an Intimate-Space Socially Assistive Robot for Emotion Regulation
This addresses the problem of knowledge transfer from research to product development for socially assistive robots, which is incremental as it builds on existing HCI/HRI work.
The paper tackles the challenge of translating a research device for emotion regulation in children into a commercial product while preserving design values, resulting in lessons learned for scalable deployment and an articulated design space for intimate-space socially assistive robots in HCI/HRI.
We present a Research-through-Design case study of the design and development of an intimate-space tangible device perhaps best understood as a socially assistive robot, aimed at scaffolding children's efforts at emotional regulation. This case study covers the initial research device development, as well as knowledge transfer to a product development company towards translating the research into a workable commercial product that could also serve as a robust research product for field trials. Key contributions to the literature include: 1. sharing of lessons learned from the knowledge transfer process that can be useful to others interested in developing robust products, whether commercial or research, that preserve design values, while allowing for large scale deployment and research; 2. articulation of a design space in HCI/HRI--Human Robot Interaction--of intimate space socially assistive robots, with the current artifact as a central exemplar, contextualized alongside other related HRI artifacts.