Designing robots that people can relate to and understand requires shaping their embodiment and behavior in service of their purpose and use, without getting stuck in predominant robot stereotypes. With this work, we delineate the hybridity of robotic artifacts and discuss leveraging hybridity towards more thoughtful design. In an online study, we asked 103 participants to look at videos featuring robots being active in different contexts. After each video, participants were asked to share their impressions of the robots through questionnaires designed to evaluate four aspects: (1) ontological categorization, (2) behavioral attributions, (3) interaction considerations, and (4) perceived value. Through an interpretative analysis, the hybridity of robotic artifacts is delineated by tracing back responses of participants on the questionnaire items to its video contents through visual inspection. We discuss how the hybridity of robotic artifacts can be traced back to three distinct framings - products for use, social actors, and animate entities - that inform their perceived functional and affective value. Furthermore, we explore how these framings can merge into more complex configurations, including portrayals of robots as objects with intent, as entities that reveal a spectrum of more-than-human sociabilities, and as prompts for discussions about human-robot coexistences. We conclude by reflecting on these findings to consider how leveraging hybridity can inform more thoughtful design approaches in human-robot interaction.

Given the increasing challenges in today’s healthcare landscape, the role of health promotion and care delivery in home settings is gaining importance. Social robots have emerged as promising tools to support this shift, offering assistance, motivation, and companionship to patients and caregivers. However, their integration into home-based healthcare remains limited. To understand the underlying reasons, this study systematically reviews the literature, identifying the enablers and barriers to the deployment and use of social robots in home environments. Seven electronic databases (Medline, Embase, Web of Science, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Google Scholar) were searched in June 2023 and July 2024. After screening and eligibility assessment, 39 studies, involving actual human-robot interaction and conducted in real home environments, were included and appraised using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Data extracted from these studies were synthesized thematically. The results show that all studies were conducted in high-income countries, with most focusing on older adults and employing high-cost, anthropomorphic robots that were rarely co-designed with users. The findings suggest that the deployment and use of social robots are shaped by an interplay of the characteristics of interaction, context, robot, and user. They also point to a lack of holistic consideration of these characteristics, limited attention to ethical and legal aspects, and insufficient stakeholder inclusion in current design and implementation practices. To address these limitations, future research may benefit from ecological, participatory, speculative, and performative design approaches that support the development of more inclusive, adaptive, and ethical social robots for home-based healthcare.

The 3rd Workshop on Designerly Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) aims to bring together scholars and practitioners engaged in design-oriented research to articulate the value of design research within HRI broadly. We propose a half-day workshop to (1) collectively map the diversity of design research in HRI, examining how contributions are framed and how quality is evaluated; (2) discuss participants’ HRI design projects, showcased in an exhibition setting; and (3) conclude with a focused conversation to identify common ground across diverse approaches and develop strategies for strengthening the position of design research in HRI and its connections with other HRI disciplinary communities.

A plethora of toolkits, checklists, and workshops have been developed to bridge the well-documented gap between AI ethics principles and practice. Yet little is known about effects of such interventions on practitioners. We conducted an ethnographic investigation in a major European city organization that developed and works to integrate an ethics toolkit into city operations. We find that the integration of ethics tools by technical teams desta-bilises their boundaries, roles, and mandates around responsibilities and decisions. This lead to emotional discomfort and feelings of vulnerability, which neither toolkit designers nor the organization had accounted for.We leverage the concept of moral stress to argue that this affective experience is a core challenge to the successful integration of ethics tools in technical practice. Even in this best case scenario, organisational structures were not able to deal with moral stress that resulted from attempts to implement responsible technology development practices.

Purpose: eHealth-based exercise therapies were developed to increase stroke patients’ adherence to home-based motor rehabilitation. However, these eHealth tools face a rapid decrease in use after a couple of weeks. This study investigates stroke patients’ motivation for home-based upper extremity rehabilitation with eHealth tools and their relation with Basic Psychological Needs. Materials and methods: This is a qualitative study using thematic analysis. We conducted semi-structured interviews with stroke patients with upper extremity motor impairments, who were discharged home from a rehabilitation centre, after they interacted with a novel eHealth coach demonstrator in their homes for five consecutive days. Results: We included ten stroke patients. Thematic analysis resulted in eight themes for home-based rehabilitation motivation: Curiosity, Rationale, Choice, Optimal challenge, Reference, Encouragement, Social Support and Trustworthiness. Those themes are embedded into three Basic Psychological Needs: “Autonomy”, “Competence”, and “Relatedness”. Conclusion: Eight motivational themes related to the three Basic Psychological Needs describe stroke patients’ motivation for home-based upper extremity rehabilitation. We recommend considering those themes when developing a home-based eHealth intervention for stroke patients to increase the alignment of eHealth tools to the patient’s needs and reduce motivational decreases in home-based rehabilitation.

Using HRI theory to inform robot development is an important, but difficult, endeavor. This paper explores the relationship between HRI theory and HRI practice through a design project on the development of design guidelines for human-robot communication together with a dairy farming robot manufacturer. The design guidelines, a type of intermediate-level knowledge, were intended to enrich the specialized knowledge of the company on farming context with relevant academic knowledge. In this process, we identified that HRI theories were used as a frame, a tool, best practices, and a reference; while the HRI practice provided a context, a reference, and validation for the theories. Our intended contribution is to propose a means to facilitate exchanges both ways between HRI theory and practice and add to the emerging repertoire of designerly ways of producing knowledge in HRI.

The water motion computed using 3D and 2DH models in tidally dominated shallow waters can, in some cases, differ significantly. In 2DH models, bed friction is typically parametrised in terms of the depth-averaged velocity, whereas in 3D models, typically the near-bed velocity is used. This difference causes the bed shear stress in 2DH models to point towards the depth-averaged velocity, whereas in 3D models, it points towards the near-bed velocity, which are not necessarily the same. Focussing on linearised barotropic models, we derive an exact friction parametrisation for 2DH models such that the same depth-averaged dynamics are described as in the corresponding 3D model. The result is a convolutional friction formulation where the instantaneous friction depends on the present and past velocities, thus modifying the traditional 2DH friction formulation that only depends on the present depth-averaged velocity. In the case of harmonic (tidal) waves, this parametrisation has a clear physical interpretation and shows that the near-bed velocity should be parametrised as a rotated, deformed and phase shifted variant of the depth-averaged velocity. We demonstrate that in certain regions of the parameter space, it may be impossible to calibrate a 2DH model that uses a traditional friction law to reproduce the water levels from a 3D model, showing that the 3D friction formulation can be crucial to capture the 3D dynamics within a depth-averaged model. This phenomenon is explored in detail in a narrow well-mixed estuary.

Smart wearables are increasingly used to help people deal with stress. Still, a less explored area of research in this field concerns the partnerships that smart wearables can take on when engaging people in stress-coping activities. To facilitate further understanding of the human-wearable partnerships, we designed Grippy, a smart wearable system composed of a physical glove and a smartphone application to help the wearer actively explore and cope with stress in daily situations. We introduced Grippy, as a speculative probe, to six participants (four master students and two university employees) who wore it for five successive days. Participants were interviewed about their use experience of Grippy during and after these five days. Qualitative data collected from the interviews was interpreted regarding how Grippy could fit into people’s stress-coping activities across different daily contexts and what kinds of partnerships with the smart wearable were perceived by the participants. In addition, we reflect on the design issues that led to the mismatch between our design intentions and people’s actual use experiences. We discuss how these results have deepened our understanding of human-wearable partnerships in the context of stress management and the usability issues that might hinder the expression and acceptance of smart wearables designed as partners. We end the discussion by reflecting on the implications of smart wearables as partners in mental healthcare.

Purpose: It is important to support families in dealing with the distress that comes along with the diagnosis and treatment of childhood cancer. Therefore, we developed a playful tool that families can use at home to support their family functioning and safeguard their normal family life. We pilot tested this new tool called Mr.V and describe how families used and evaluated the tool, and how it could be further improved. Methods: Mr.V is an interactive dispenser that looks like a spaceman and proposes family activities. These activities are suggested by family members themselves and dispensed by the machine at unexpected moments. Mr.V produced data on how it was used, and a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were used to evaluate the experiences of families and the potential of this tool. Results: Ten families with a child with cancer between 5 and 9 years old (M_age = 6.7 years) who were in active treatment (mixed diagnoses) participated (n = 47; n_patients = 10, n_siblings = 9, n_parents = 16). All families used Mr.V for multiple days and were very satisfied with the tool regarding its acceptability, feasibility, and potential effectiveness. They also had suggestions on how the tool could be further improved. Conclusion: Mr.V is an acceptable and feasible tool that can be implemented by families independently at home, regardless of their level of need for support. Mr.V promoted family activities and therefore has the potential to support family functioning and normal family life at home. Future research should further investigate the effectiveness of this tool.

We propose an approach to designing smart wearables that act as partners to help people cope with stress in daily life. Our approach contributes to the developing field of smart wearables by addressing how technological capabilities can be designed to establish partnerships that consider the person, the situation, and the appropriate type of support. As such, this study also contributes to healthcare by opening up novel technology-supported routes to stress treatment and care. We present the results of a phenomenological study conducted with three war veterans who suffer from chronic posttraumatic stress disorder. We describe how their experiences of dealing with their stress informed our design approach, and discuss the implications of these results on smart wearables and stress management in general. We conclude by reflecting on the limitations of this study and directions for future work.