Putting laypeople in an active role as direct expert contributors in the design of service robots becomes more and more prominent in the research fields of human–robot interaction and social robotics. Currently, though, HRI is caught in a dilemma of how to create meaningful service robots for human social environments, combining expectations shaped by popular media with technology readiness. We recapitulate traditional stakeholder involvement, including two cases in which new intelligent robots were conceptualized and realized for close interaction with humans. (...) Thereby, we show how the robot narrative together with aspects of power balancing stakeholders, such as hardware constraints and missing perspectives beyond primary users, and the adaptivity of robots through machine learning that creates unpredictability, pose specific challenges for participatory design processes in HRI. We conclude with thoughts on a way forward for the HRI community in developing a culture of participation that considers humans when conceptualizing, building, and using robots. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the development of robot use cases in an elderly care facility in the context of exploring the method of Integrative Social Robotics when used on top of a user-centered design approach. Integrative Social Robotics is a new proposal for how to generate responsible, i.e. culturally and ethically sustainable, social robotics applications. Starting point for the discussion are the five principles that characterize an ISR approach, which are discussed in application to the three use cases for (...) robot support in a Danish elderly care facility developed within the smooth project. The discussion by an interdisciplinary design team explores what attention to the five principles of ISR can offer for use case development. We report on the consequences of this short-time exposure to the basic ideas of ISR for use case development and discuss the value of approaching robot development from an ISR perspective. (shrink)