Toward Acceptable Domestic Robots: Lessons Learned from Social Psychology

Social psychology offers a perspective on the acceptance and adoption of technology that is not often considered in technical circles. In this paper, we discuss several adoption-of-technology models in respect to the acceptance of domestic robots. We raise several key points that we feel will be pivotal to how domestic users respond to robots, and provide a set of heuristics that roboticists and designers of robotic interfaces can use to consider and analyze their designs. Ultimately, understanding both how users respond to robots and the reasons behind their responses will enable designers to creating domestic robots that are accepted into homes. CR Subject Classification H.1.2 [Models and principles]: user/machine systems–software psychology