A Robot of My Own: Participatory Design of Socially Assistive Robots for Independently Living Older Adults Diagnosed with Depression

Social robots have been found to provide a sense of social presence and communication that may reduce loneliness and social isolation and enable older adults to connect with family, friends, and their community.

“Social robots have been found to provide a sense of social presence and communication that may reduce loneliness and social isolation and enable older adults to connect with family, friends, and their community (Beer and Takayama, 2011; Šabanović et al., 2015; Ostrowski et al., 2019).”

Little emphasis has been placed on analyzing older adults' informally told stories about their prior technology experiences or experiences with social robots.

“Despite the evidence of this approach, little emphasis has been placed on analyzing older adults’ informally told stories about their prior technology experiences or experiences with social robots.”

Informal personal narratives from everyday people, such as older adults, have not been considered meaningful data in the storytelling lens in human-computer interaction.

“The storytelling lens in human-computer interaction has primarily focused on personas, design fiction, and other stories crafted by designers, yet informal personal narratives from everyday people have not been considered meaningful data, such as storytelling from older adults.”

Lee et al. (2017) and Šabanović et al. (2015)'s co-design process was with older adults who have depression, and their results focused on a social robot for companionship without the additional focus of the social robot as a tool for therapy applications.

“While Lee et al. (2017) and Šabanović et al. (2015)’s co-design process was with older adults who have depression, the results focused on a social robot for companionship without the additional focus of the social robot as a tool for therapy applications as was referenced in our study.”