Accessibility in Senior-Robot Interactions within Care Homes*

Abstract

Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) integrate technology with social interaction to provide personalized assistance, especially in healthcare and social care settings. Seniors can use SARs to enhance their understanding of robots by interacting with them and learning about their different features and capabilities. However, ensuring effective senior-robot interactions necessitates addressing the specific needs and accessibility requirements of all users, an area that remains under-explored in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). This research involved conducting one-hour interactive sessions in two care homes ($\mathrm{N}=12$), where seniors engaged with SoftBank Robotics’ Pepper robot for playing bingo and LuxAI’s QTrobot for discussing data privacy. Following these senior-robot interactions, group interviews were conducted, and all sessions were video recorded for analysis. The study aimed to identify the key attributes that enhance the comprehensibility of the robot’s speech, and to assess the impact of combining speech and supporting pictures on senior-robot interactions. The study highlighted the importance of optimizing the robot’s speech characteristics, such as speed, volume, vocabulary, and pitch to ensure better understanding and more effective communication. Additionally, findings indicated that supplementing speech with supporting pictures enhances seniors’ task independence.