Human Robot Interaction
This is a starship.
Starship robots are a familiar sight on Purdue's campus. These autonomous food delivery robots navigate down sidewalks, up curbs, across intersections, and through busy pedestrian areas on their quest to deliver food from nearby restaurants to hungry students.
Summary
For my UX capstone project, I had an entire semester to explore a topic through a self-directed project, and I wanted to dive into the field of human-robot interaction because it was new to me and I was fascinated with the starships
To complete my project, I researched how people interacted with service robots in a shared public space, then used that data to inspire robot design. By creating fun starship characters using a variety of methods ranging from feasible to futuristic, not only does it contribute to delightful passerby interactions but also results in increased brand awareness of Starship.
Project Info
Tools used: Figma, Lego, Lego coding app, Miro
Timeframe: January - May 2023
Team / Role: Solo UX designer/researcher (capstone project)
The Challenge:
Students are used to and bored of food delivery robots
In order to deliver food, starship robots have to cooperate with surrounding human traffic, which allows for fascinating and/or unintended passerby human-robot interactions to occur. Many students have shared their unique interactions with the robots or professed their love for them on Purdue's active subreddit.
However, when I was conducting field observations to understand how people interacted with the robots, I discovered that almost everyone walked past the robots and ignored them as they went about their day. This surprised me because many people expressed their love for them online. However, I discovered why from some Reddit comments:
“They were so incredible and fun and hilarious when they arrived in Fall of 2019, but by now a senior like me is completely sick of them.”
“People do talk about them, but after you have been here for a couple months you don’t think much about them.”
“We're used to them. They were all the talk when they first came to campus”
“Used to think they were so cool, now I just think they're a box of rocks on wheels.”
These sentiments also echo the novelty effect that researchers discovered on another college campus with similar food delivery robots. (Kim, Kohn, & Shaw, 2021)
My Approach:
Milestone 1:
How do people interact with service robots in a shared public space?
Analyzed 6 journal articles
Field observations
Interviews
Inspected comments from r/Purdue
Milestone 2:
How can I make delightful passerby interactions?
Ideation & Sketching
Figma prototypes
Concept testing
Milestone 3:
Refining passerby interactions
Custom Lego robot
Usability testing
The Solution(s)
I did not want to limit myself while prototyping, so my designs are on a scale of feasible to futuristic. The feasible designs could be implemented immediately with current Starship technology, while the futuristic designs would require more physical features and reprogramming of the robots.
- Decals to add personality
My first (and most feasible) design was to put decals on the starships to add more personality to the robots. There could be many possible designs, such as a human face, animal face, made-up creature, or having the lid open like a tortoise shell.
"Feel happy when you see it" - user testing feedback
"Looks like it has its own emotion" - user testing feedback
*laughter* "It has cat ears!" - user testing feedback
2. Robot Characters
Building on the idea above, you could easily create unique starship "characters" using decals. I was heavily inspired by the various villagers in Nintendo's Animal Crossing game. These were also inspired by a thread I posted on r/Purdue asking students what animals they wished the starships looked like, which gathered 38 comments.
User testing feedback:
"I kind of wish each starship had unique paintings/decals and a name that's printed on top."
"It would be cool if there were rare interactions"
Why do these designs work?
I discovered that students loved these designs, but I also noticed two common themes emerging at every stage of testing/prototyping: People wanted to personalize the robots, and people wanted to categorize the robots.
People want to categorize the robots
"I have tried putting names on them, but they just disappeared the next day ):" - comment from r/Purdue
"I kind of wish each starship had unique paintings/decals and a name that's printed on top. It would be cool to have favorites be able to recognize ones you've seen before. It would also allow people to do "collect" starship sightings like birdwatchers do" - comment from r/Purdue
One ambitious Redditor even shared a link to their spreadsheet where they had listed each robot's serial number, gave them unique names, and took notes when the robots were last spotted.
People want to personalize the robots
"Can we please dress the little robots up for Halloween???" - comment from r/Purdue
"It's so fun to see other stickers [and what other people put on them]" - feedback from concept testing
"Early on last semester, I put two giant Googly eyes on the front of a bunch of them them. That combined with the six “legs” made them look like beetles which was a much needed improvement in my opinion" - comment from r/Purdue
3. High five the robot
A more futuristic interaction would be to put a hand on the flag of the robot so passersby could high-five it, prompting a reaction from the robot.
User testing feedback:
"I saw the hand and I was wondering if it was meant to be a high five or wave hello"
"If I was with friends we'd probably laugh and think it was a funny thing"
"I really like the eyes ... it made me think it was cute"
4. Tap the robot to initiate an interaction
The most futuristic idea I had for an interaction would be to pat the robot on the top to make play a happy sound. My participants loved concept testing with this, as they laughed, smiled, and called it cute. A few people said it reminded them of WALLE, and one person wanted to tap it again to continue interacting with it to see what it would do.
User testing quotes:
"Can I tap it again? I was wondering what it would say to me"
“That’s cute” *laughs*
"It sounds a lot like WALL·E"
Iteration: adding a clear tap signifier
One thing I discovered while testing was that there was also no clear signifier to initiate the interaction, so I iterated my design to include a “touch me” sticker on the top.
Another application of this design would be to replace the happy face and accompanying sound with a sad face and a breaking sound. This could potentially be used to deter passersby from harassing the robot, because my testing participants were pretty quick to stop touching it when that happened. One of my participants hastily put the robot down and said “Oh my gosh let me just not touch him ever again.”
Why do these designs work?
While I was initially designing for delightful passerby interactions, I also discovered that these interactions could provide value to the Starship brand, because it expands upon the brand’s spirit and creates increased brand awareness of the robots.
They expand upon the Starship brand
During October, Starship makes a “pumpkin bot” for Halloween and if anyone spots it and posts it on social media, they get a free delivery on their next order."
A starship representative stated that "We want people to enjoy some fun with the robots and celebrate Halloween."
My designs take that spirit of having fun with the robots and expands on it all year round through various methods besides decals, such as high-fiving the robot.
They increase brand awareness by causing mixed reactions that spark conversation & curiosity
Even though students might be accustomed to starships, I had some interesting results while testing my designs. I discovered that they caused mixed reactions amongst my participants that sparked both conversation and curiosity about the robots, thus increasing brand awareness:
"This is so adorable and reminds me of a squishmallow; it might make me want to order something more"
"What are these for? is there an event going on or something?"
"I would laugh and wonder- - when did they change the design? did a student do that?"
Reflection
Overall, this was one of my favorite projects and I had a lot of fun with it! This was a great opportunity for me to plan and manage a project, especially when I wasn't 100% sure what problem I needed to solve or how I was going to solve it. I was able to successfully do this by planning 3 milestones with questions I wanted to answer. Looking back, I wished I would have narrowed down sooner so I had more time to develop and test ideas, and I wished that I had gathered qualitative data along with my quantitative data so I could better explain the effectiveness of my designs