Exploring the role of robots in home organization

Abstract

Technologists have long wanted to put robots in the home, making robots truly personal and present in every aspect of our lives. It has not been clear, however, exactly what these robots should do in the home. The difficulty of tasking robots with home chores comes not only from the significant technical challenges, but also from the strong emotions and expectations people have about their home lives. In this paper, we explore one possible set of tasks a robot could perform, home organization and storage tasks. Using the technique of need finding, we interviewed a group of people regarding the reality of organization in their home; the successes, failures, family dynamics and practicalities surrounding organization. These interviews are abstracted into a set of frameworks and design implications for home robotics, which we contribute to the community as inspiration and hypotheses for future robot prototypes to test.