Value Elicitation for a Socially Assistive Robot Addressing Social Anxiety: A Participatory Design Approach

TL;DR

This paper tackles designing socially assistive robots (SARs) to support individuals with social anxiety (SA) by foregrounding value elicitation through a participatory design workshop with mental health researchers. Grounded in Value-Sensitive Design, the study elicits values related to risks, benefits, and design to guide SAR interventions, emphasizing adaptivity, meaningful feedback, acceptance, and adaptive exposure programmes. The findings outline design directions such as simulating group social contexts, safe and private interactions, and a research-driven development path with longitudinal evaluation. The work advances ethical, user-centered guidelines for SARs in SA, and calls for end-user involvement and cross-cultural validation to ensure relevance and effectiveness.

Abstract

Social anxiety is a prevalent mental health condition that can significantly impact overall well-being and quality of life. Despite its widespread effects, adequate support or treatment for social anxiety is often insufficient. Advances in technology, particularly in social robotics, offer promising opportunities to complement traditional mental health. As an initial step toward developing effective solutions, it is essential to understand the values that shape what is considered meaningful, acceptable, and helpful. In this study, a participatory design workshop was conducted with mental health academic researchers to elicit the underlying values that should inform the design of socially assistive robots for social anxiety support. Through creative, reflective, and envisioning activities, participants explored scenarios and design possibilities, allowing for systematic elicitation of values, expectations, needs, and preferences related to robot-supported interventions. The findings reveal rich insights into design-relevant values-including adaptivity, acceptance, and efficacy-that are core to support for individuals with social anxiety. This study highlights the significance of a research-led approach to value elicitation, emphasising user-centred and context-aware design considerations in the development of socially assistive robots.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: Background Story Used to Guide the Workshop
• Figure 2: Group 1 Mind Map and Final Results
• Figure 3: Group 2 Mind Map and Final Results
• Figure 4: Connections between perceived risks and the elicited design values
• Figure 5: Connections between potential benefits and the elicited design values