A Human-Centered Design Process for Developing Non-Humanoid Social Robotic (NH-SR) Work and Exercise Environment

Abstract

The iWEE, is a non-humanoid social robotic system that recognizes office workers' limited movement, e.g., sitting for more than an hour, combines this information with their meditation and/or exercise preferences, and in response prompts them to engage in periodic whole-body movement activity breaks. The iWEE' robotic systems sense users' movements, assess the users' states, and reconfigure to encourage exercise by actuating its different spatial sensory cues, i.e., form, sound and color. The iWEE also employs architectural conventions, providing different configurations to encourage movement of different muscle groups. iWEE's users interact with the robotic system using for example touch, proximity and/or infrared sensors, or by using push buttons located at the iWEE's spatial interface. The cyber physical system are iteratively designed, prototyped, and empirically evaluated at different scales.