19.10.2023
Results of the co-creation workshops - Part I
After Fraunhofer IAO’s User Experience team held several co-creation workshops, the results are now available. This is how the participants evaluate the robots.
Fraunhofer IAO’s co-creation workshops focused on the development of innovative additional functions for robots. This included the question of how they can provide added value in downtown Ulm. 26 participants worked out innovative ideas and impulses for the design of robots for use in Ulm in four workshops with the help of various science-based creative methods. Now it is time to take a look at the results after a detailed evaluation.
The survey and evaluation by the User Experience team from Fraunhofer IAO was multimodal, which means that both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. Questionnaires were used to record how the participants perceive the robot, their attitude towards it, the extent to which they accept it, and how they rate their self-efficacy, i.e. how capable they feel of interacting with the robot. The Fraunhofer IAO team used validated scientific scales for this purpose. The results are being incorporated into the further design of the robots for downtown Ulm. To this end, Fraunhofer IAO is in close exchange with Adlatus Robotics and the city of Ulm.
Machine instead of human appearance
The results from the workshops show the importance to involve users in development at an early stage so that technology can be designed sensibly and according to their needs. What does this mean in concrete terms?
Participants’ evaluations of the robots provide exciting insights. The results, which take a closer look at the subjective evaluation, were fundamentally very positive among the participants. The high acceptance of the participants, their positive attitude and a high self-efficacy could be seen: that means their intention to be able to interact with the robot or to operate it on their own. Previous research shows that people tend to perceive robots and other technologies as social actors and attribute social properties to them. In this case, the questionnaire data revealed that the robots were perceived more as machines. This can be explained in particular by the external design: the robots in current version have few human external design features.
Results 2 and 3 also have already been evaluated by the user experience experts at Fraunhofer IAO – we will keep you updated on the impulses regarding requirements for robots and their additional functions.
