A Robot Tour Guide for People with Sight Loss in a Robotic Assisted Living Environment

Abstract

Robotic assisted living environments are currently lacking in accessibility for individuals with sight loss. To address this need, this preliminary study designs and evaluates a bespoke robotic tour guide which provides meaningful firsttime interactions for people with sight loss in a robotic assisted living lab. We engaged 8 participants with sight loss between the ages of 20 and 80 years old, in a counterbalanced, withinsubjects study comparing their experiences of a guided tour of a robotic assisted living lab led by a Temi robot, to the same guided tour led by a trained human tour guide. Results show that the robotic tour guide for people with sight loss is perceived as warm and competent, with low discomfort in the human-robot interaction. Findings also show that the tour guided by the robot is perceived to be equally engaging and useful as the tour led by the trained human tour guide, and does not lead to an increase in workload. Key findings highlight the importance of tactile exploration, multimodal interaction, and enhanced control, and identify differing needs between users who are blind and partially sighted,