Designing for Trust in Domestic Robots: Understanding how Design Affects Users’ Trust in Robotic Vacuum Cleaners

Abstract

The amount of robots that humans can be expected to interact with in their everyday life is steadily increasing. In order to facilitate the best interactions with these robots the human must have an appropriate amount of trust in the robot. This Master Thesis explores the aspect of trust that users have in domestic robots, focusing especially on the Robotic Vacuum Cleaner (RVC). This was done through a literature study supported by a subject expert inquiry interview which resulted in a relationship map over the factors that affect trust in RVCs. This was then followed up by creating a prototype which was used to test and dig deeper into how transparency factors into trust. At the same time user studies in the form of interviewing owners of RVCs were carried out in order to support the results from the literature study.