I am a UX designer and
researcher who is passionate
about using creativity and
empathy to empower people.
I am a UX designer and
researcher who is passionate
about using creativity and
empathy to empower people.
Project EMAR(Ecological Momentary Assessment Robot) is about the design and development of a social robot to measure and improve adolescent mental health.
Worked as a research intern sponsored by CoMotion Mary Gates Innovation Scholars program and Human-Centered Design & Engineering department at University of Washington.
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Figma
Procreate
Google Slide
Eeshani Mondal
samruddha malandkar
Ideation
Usability test
Prototyping
Final Report
12 Months
Project EMAR is currently funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the National Robotics Initiative. This project is an interdisciplinary investigation of teen-robot interaction in an effort to effectively capture adolescent stress levels during interactions with a social robot.
Previous research has identified that teens face more stress than any other age groups, and stress can negatively impact teens’ mental and physical health.
EMA (Ecological Momentary Assessment): A method that captures subject’s current behaviors and experiences in real time, in subjects' natural environments.
HCD (Human-centered Design): A process to develop products and services that meet the needs of the people who will use them.
Summer research internship (June 2021 to August 2021) :
• Participated in user studies and analyze the data collected
• Lead the “wild scenario” project with EMAR V7
Design research assistant (September 2021 to present) :
• Data visualization study with EMAR V7
• Researching sound, movement, and haptics with Kuriosity
EMAR V7
Kuriosity
Purpose of the study: We want to see how English Language Learners’ view on EMAR, how can EMAR help with their study in schools.
Samples: We recruited 22 kids with ages 3-15, all are bilingual with mostly Chinese as their home language.
Design session activities:
• Face editing
• Embodiment design
• Interaction design
Method: Participatory Design
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Teenagers was asked to design the face and expression of the robot by adjusting parameters on the screen, and they will give a name after they finish designing.
We prepared design kits for teens to interact with and make their favorite looks of the robot. This helps us to drive insights on the design of EMAR in the future.
The kids talked to the robot and interact with it. EMAR will give certain responses to teens such as tilt head, rotate body or show up certain messages on its belly screen.
Example of interaction scripts:
⭐EMAR: Hello, I am EMAR (or custom name). I am a social robot who likes to hear stories in all languages, especially Chinese.
⭐EMAR: Can one of you tell me a story about something that happened at camp last week….? (active listening) [EMAE tilts head, moves body, blinks, while listening]
⭐EMAR: Thank you all for sharing your stories. I love hearing stories and I need to meet with more children today, so we’ll have to say goodbye. [goodbye screen?]
💫Teens would prefer to design their own looks of the robot rather than have it already designed
💫Teens feels the robot is cute and anthropomorphic
💫They refer the robot as “he” rather than “it” after they give names to the robot
💫Teens would like to hear it speaking, and responds “go on” or “I’m listening” while sharing stories to it
ideations for EMAR’s body and attachments
We want to design a social robot in the public setting, and our audience is the general public instead of teenagers in this case.
We want to explore what some aspects of designs and embodiments of our social robot might or might not work for the general public, so that we can give insights to future study and research.
We ideated a messenger robot with the function of sending and receiving message from strangers.
people are able to input messages for public and others walk by later can see the message left by previous people.
⭐Ambient mode
⭐Show messages left by people on the front screen
⭐Choose to receive a message, create a message, or view next message
⭐Stress reducing interactions
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We used college campus as the public setting and conducted interview with 5 participants from different age groups.
💫What do people think the robot is for and what is the purpose of the robot in their opinion?
💫Do people want to have such a messenger robot in their community and where do they like to have it implement?
💫What other functions would people like to see?
💫Do people like the general appearance of the robot? How can we better improve it?
🌟We noticed that some participants are not sure whether the message is from the robot or from other people.
🌟One participant mentioned a husky logo would make him want to interact with the robot and also improve the belongingness.
🌟Some participants want to have the voice recording option beyond text input as it is more convenient to them.
⭐Gave users the option to include their name
⭐Change the embodiment into a purple mailbox with a husky logo
⭐Added the voice recording function
⭐Certain corresponding movement to show confirmation
We conducted interview with 6 participants for the second round of iteration.
We prepared more specific interview questions for this round since we got most general questions answered previously.
💫Do people prefer audio record or text input, and why?
💫Do people prefer the mailbox/animalistic appearance of the robot compare to the previous one?
💫Do people like to include their name when sending or replying messages to the public?
💫Do people prefer the robot to be stationary or like to have it approach to them, if possible?
🌟We found that most participants prefer audio record because it’s convenient.
🌟Since we add the function of including name for this round, we noticed most participants include their name.
🌟For the mobility question, it depends on different age groups.
In general, Project EMAR hopes to begin pilot testing of new prototypes of different use cases in a regional school districts, studying efficacy, usability, adoption, and disruption.
For this specific community-based use case, we plan to conduct A/B testing on two more embodiment design idea for the messenger function.
Idea 01
A tablet for users to interact with.
Idea 02
A robot holding the tablet.
