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Designing a Socially Assistive Robot to Support Older Adults with Low Vision

Emily Zhou, Zhonghao Shi, Xiaoyang Qiao, Maja J Matarić, Ava K Bittner

TL;DR

The paper investigates socially assistive robots to support older adults with low vision in long-term magnifier rehabilitation. It uses a two-phase user study (mailed survey followed by an in-clinic SAR demo) to assess usefulness, trust, ease of use, and enjoyment, and to derive user-informed design guidelines. Results show SAR is perceived as useful and trustworthy, with the in-clinic demo increasing perceived ease and enjoyment; Phase 2 also yields actionable design principles such as professional voice, personalization, and long-term engagement. These findings support developing autonomous, in-home SARs to augment LV rehabilitation and address barriers to ongoing magnifier training.

Abstract

Socially assistive robots (SARs) have shown great promise in supplementing and augmenting interventions to support the physical and mental well-being of older adults. However, past work has not yet explored the potential of applying SAR to lower the barriers of long-term low vision rehabilitation (LVR) interventions for older adults. In this work, we present a user-informed design process to validate the motivation and identify major design principles for developing SAR for long-term LVR. To evaluate user-perceived usefulness and acceptance of SAR in this novel domain, we performed a two-phase study through user surveys. First, a group (n=38) of older adults with LV completed a mailed-in survey. Next, a new group (n=13) of older adults with LV saw an in-clinic SAR demo and then completed the survey. The study participants reported that SARs would be useful, trustworthy, easy to use, and enjoyable while providing socio-emotional support to augment LVR interventions. The in-clinic demo group reported significantly more positive opinions of the SAR's capabilities than did the baseline survey group that used mailed-in forms without the SAR demo.

Designing a Socially Assistive Robot to Support Older Adults with Low Vision

TL;DR

The paper investigates socially assistive robots to support older adults with low vision in long-term magnifier rehabilitation. It uses a two-phase user study (mailed survey followed by an in-clinic SAR demo) to assess usefulness, trust, ease of use, and enjoyment, and to derive user-informed design guidelines. Results show SAR is perceived as useful and trustworthy, with the in-clinic demo increasing perceived ease and enjoyment; Phase 2 also yields actionable design principles such as professional voice, personalization, and long-term engagement. These findings support developing autonomous, in-home SARs to augment LV rehabilitation and address barriers to ongoing magnifier training.

Abstract

Socially assistive robots (SARs) have shown great promise in supplementing and augmenting interventions to support the physical and mental well-being of older adults. However, past work has not yet explored the potential of applying SAR to lower the barriers of long-term low vision rehabilitation (LVR) interventions for older adults. In this work, we present a user-informed design process to validate the motivation and identify major design principles for developing SAR for long-term LVR. To evaluate user-perceived usefulness and acceptance of SAR in this novel domain, we performed a two-phase study through user surveys. First, a group (n=38) of older adults with LV completed a mailed-in survey. Next, a new group (n=13) of older adults with LV saw an in-clinic SAR demo and then completed the survey. The study participants reported that SARs would be useful, trustworthy, easy to use, and enjoyable while providing socio-emotional support to augment LVR interventions. The in-clinic demo group reported significantly more positive opinions of the SAR's capabilities than did the baseline survey group that used mailed-in forms without the SAR demo.
Paper Structure (9 sections, 3 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 9 sections, 3 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background and Related Work
  3. Experimental Design
  4. Methods
  5. SAR System Implementation
  6. Survey Analysis
  7. Results
  8. Discussion
  9. Conclusion

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: (A) Prototype SAR demonstration system setup deployed in phase 2 of the study; (B) Overview of the two-phase study design.
  • Figure 2: System architecture of our SAR system hardware and software.
  • Figure 3: (A) A stacked bar graph of participants' ratings relevant to H1 and H2. The majority of participants felt frustrated (72.2%) about magnifier use, and felt that a SAR would be useful (68.6 %), a good idea (80.6 %), and trustworthy (69.4 %) to facilitate LVR, especially for their socio-emotional needs. (B) A comparison of stacked bar graphs between the Phase 1 mailed-in and Phase 2 in-clinic demo groups, showing that the Phase 2 group developed more positive opinions of SAR's capabilities than the Phase 1 group (* = p < 0.05, ** = p < 0.001).