Designing Robots for Families: In-Situ Prototyping for Contextual Reminders on Family Routines
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arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2026
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| Acceso en línea: | |
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| _version_ | 1866908853584527360 |
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| author | Xu, Michael F. Zhao, Enhui Zhang, Yawen Michaelis, Joseph E. Sebo, Sarah Mutlu, Bilge |
| author_facet | Xu, Michael F. Zhao, Enhui Zhang, Yawen Michaelis, Joseph E. Sebo, Sarah Mutlu, Bilge |
| contents | Robots are increasingly entering the daily lives of families, yet their successful integration into domestic life remains a challenge. We explore family routines as a critical entry point for understanding how robots might find a sustainable role in everyday family settings. Together with each of the ten families, we co-designed robot interactions and behaviors, and a plan for the robot to support their chosen routines, accounting for contextual factors such as timing, participants, locations, and the activities in the environment. We then designed, prototyped, and deployed a mobile social robot as a four-day, in-home user study. Families welcomed the robot's reminders, with parents especially appreciating the offloading of some reminding tasks. At the same time, interviews revealed tensions around timing, authority, and family dynamics, highlighting the complexity of integrating robots into households beyond the immediate task of reminders. Based on these insights, we offer design implications for robot-facilitated contextual reminders and discuss broader considerations for designing robots for family settings. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_22628 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Designing Robots for Families: In-Situ Prototyping for Contextual Reminders on Family Routines Xu, Michael F. Zhao, Enhui Zhang, Yawen Michaelis, Joseph E. Sebo, Sarah Mutlu, Bilge Robotics Robots are increasingly entering the daily lives of families, yet their successful integration into domestic life remains a challenge. We explore family routines as a critical entry point for understanding how robots might find a sustainable role in everyday family settings. Together with each of the ten families, we co-designed robot interactions and behaviors, and a plan for the robot to support their chosen routines, accounting for contextual factors such as timing, participants, locations, and the activities in the environment. We then designed, prototyped, and deployed a mobile social robot as a four-day, in-home user study. Families welcomed the robot's reminders, with parents especially appreciating the offloading of some reminding tasks. At the same time, interviews revealed tensions around timing, authority, and family dynamics, highlighting the complexity of integrating robots into households beyond the immediate task of reminders. Based on these insights, we offer design implications for robot-facilitated contextual reminders and discuss broader considerations for designing robots for family settings. |
| title | Designing Robots for Families: In-Situ Prototyping for Contextual Reminders on Family Routines |
| topic | Robotics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.22628 |