‘Let’s talk about People-Centred Robotics’
The illustrations on these ‘Let’s talk about People-Centred Robotics’ Cards are the outcome of workshops conducted as part of the EPSRC Healthcare Technologies Network+ project EMERGENCE where stakeholders were invited to focus groups to share their experiences of frailty and the potential of assistive robotics technologies in health and social care. The illustrations were produced by graphic illustrator Sam Church, who made these as he listened in to the conversations during the focus group discussions.
The overall aim of the EMERGENCE Network is to galvanise research that will help with getting assistive robotics from labs into real-world settings. One of the many challenges to overcome is lack of understanding of people’s concerns, anxieties and aspirations and addressing these in terms of robot design, behaviour and use.
We hope that these cards will be useful for prompting discussions and reflecting on the design and use of future robotic and intelligent assistive technologies.
Guidance on using the cards
Use the cards to surface and discuss issues related to Responsible Research and Innovation of intelligent technologies in health and social care
Understanding different stakeholder perspectives:
What are the key issues that stand out for you? What further questions do these issues raise? How could you go about investigating these further?
Understanding impact:
What are the implications for stakeholders and technology? What ethical, legal or societal concerns are raised by the content of the card?
Design constraints:
Are there issues which might result in conflicting requirements? Will there need to be trade-offs? What might these be? What will be the impact of ignoring the issue?
We expect you will have your own ideas for how to use these cards and we look forward to hearing about how you have used them. Please email Praminda.Caleb-Solly@nottingham.ac.uk to share your experiences and outcomes.
Guidance on using the cards
Use the cards to ideate or re-design technologies or services
Addressing barriers to real-world deployment:
Which of the issues can become barriers to real-world deployment? Are there any new opportunities or risks suggested by the card?
Translating issues into requirements:
How might an issue be articulated as a requirement(s) for an assistive robot or technology? Will it be possible to address the issue through design of technology or is this a social, economic or organisational issue?
Evaluating solutions:
Can the issue be used to generate evaluation criteria or metrics? What would be the nature of the evaluation to assess if the issue has been addressed? What else will need to be in place to ensure that the issue has been addressed?
Please email Praminda.Caleb-Solly@nottingham.ac.uk to share your experiences and outcomes.
Credits:
The workshops whose discussions are captured in the ‘Let’s talk about People-Centred Robotics’ cards were organised and led by the EPSRC EMERGENCE Network+ (EP/W000741/1) Consortium members including Praminda Caleb-Solly (Project Lead, University of Nottingham), Mark Hawley and Stephen Potter (University of Sheffield), Mauro Dragone (Heriot-Watt University), Alessandro di Nuovo (Sheffield Hallam University), Farshid Amirabdollahian (University of Hertfordshire) and Rebekah Moore (Emergence Project Manager, University of Nottingham). The illustrations on the cards were drawn by Sam Church, a professional illustrator who specialises in graphic facilitation. Find out more about Sam’s work by visiting his website (https://www.samchurchillustration.com) or by finding him on Twitter (@samchurch_ink).
These cards are made available through a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0) license. To view a copy of this license, visit the CC website or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. We do not grant permission to copy, alter, rebadge, translate or make any editorial or other changes to the cards, text or illustrations in any way. Any changes will be seen as an infringement of copyright owned by the EMERGENCE consortium universities and Sam Church.