A modeling framework for user-driven iterative design of autonomous systems

Many researchers in human-robot interaction have acknowledged the fact that iterative design is necessary to optimize the robots for the interaction with the users. However, few iterative user studies have been reported. We believe that one reason for this is that setting up systems for iterative studies is cumbersome because the system architectures do not support iterative design. In the paper, we address this problem by interlinking usability research with system development. In a first user study, we identify requirements and concepts for a new framework that eases the employment of autonomous robots in the iterative design process. With a second user study we show how robot behaviors are implemented in the new framework and how it enables the developer to efficiently make changes to these behaviors.