Transdisciplinary Approach in Social Robots: A Repertory Grid Analysis on Perception and Anticipated User Experience

Abstract

This Social robot can be defined as a physical robot with capabilities of interacting with their surrounding in a social manner. Social robots should be designed both physically and socially. Designing them requires more than technical knowledge and should be taken as a transdisciplinary process in which engineers, program-mers, behavioral scientists and designers co-work. This study aims to explore the transdisciplinary nature of social robots as an emerging social artefact.A repertory grid study is conducted with 13 participants from different back-grounds to reveal the perceptual keywords about social robots. 50 potential users contributed to an anticipated user experience survey to understand their percep-tions. Outcomes of these two studies are compared. Results show that different professions involved have their own approach and way of understanding that cover varying aspects of social robotic field. This highlights the position of this study which supports transdisciplinary work, and believes transdisciplinarity’s positive contributions in the future research.