Robot Characters: Co-Designing Dynamic Personalities for Cognitively Assistive Robots

When designing socially assistive robots, HRI researchers often focus on robot personality as a means of increasing a person’s engagement, enjoyment, and trust. In this work, we argue that using only trait-based personality models is often limited in its ability to capture the nuance that matches end users’ desires, experiences, and cultural backgrounds. To address this gap, we introduce the concept of a robot character , a holistic framing of robot personality that extends the trait-based approach to include external factors, such as shared interests between the user and robot, as sociocultural and environmental factors. We introduced and validated the Robot Role Character Creation (R2C2) tool, an accessible scaffolding tool to co-design robot characters with end users in order to support more nuanced and personalized robots. R2C2 highlights the voices of end users and enables them to easily ideate and communicate their unique robot characters, particularly for populations often underrepresented in robot design. Through a cross-cultural study (the U.S. and Mexico), we validated the R2C2 tool in eliciting rich design insights for robot characters from people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia (PwD). We report our findings, enabled by the R2C2 tool, on the role participants envisioned for their desired robot characters, the multidimensionality and adaptability of these robot characters, and how participants’ socio-cultural backgrounds influenced their characters. Our findings demonstrate that R2C2 can facilitate the creation of nuanced and personalized robot characters that resonate with user experiences, needs, and preferences. We analyze how participants envisioned the roles, multidimensionality, and cultural influences shaping their ideal robot characters, highlighting R2C2’s ability to capture these diverse perspectives. This work will serve as a basis for HRI designers to create more effective robot interactions, enhance acceptance and trust, and promote engagement with robot characters while centering the wisdom and personhood of people with cognitive impairments.