Högskolan i Skövde

For social robots, like in all other digitally interactive systems, products, services, and devices, positive user experience (UX) is necessary in order to achieve the intended benefits and societal relevance of human–robot interaction (HRI). The experiences that humans have when interacting with robots have the power to enable, or disable, the robots’ acceptance rate and utilization in society. For a commercial robot product, it is the achieved UX in the natural context when fulfilling its intended purpose that will determine its success. The increased number of socially interactive robots in human environments and their level of participation in everyday activities obviously highlights the importance of systematically evaluating the quality of the interaction from a human-centered perspective. There is also a need for robot developers to acquire knowledge about proper UX evaluation, both in theory and in practice. In this chapter we are asking: What is UX evaluation? Why should UX evaluation be performed? When is it appropriate to conduct a UX evaluation? How could a UX evaluation be carried out? Where could UX evaluation take place? Who should perform the UX evaluation and for whom? The aim is to briefly answer these questions in the context of doing UX evaluation in HRI, highlighting evaluation processes and methods that have methodological validity and reliability as well as practical applicability. We argue that each specific HRI project needs to take the UX perspective into account during the whole development process. We suggest that a more diverse use of methods in HRI will benefit the field, and the future users of social robots will benefit even more.