Social Robots for Inclusion - Design Participation Lab

Since 2019, we have presented a range of social robots to our research participants and collaborators with intellectual disability, as part of research conducted in our Inclusive Technologies group (in the QUT School of Computer Science) and in Inclusive Robotics within the Human Interaction Program of the QUT Centre for Robotics.

The joy that the robots always bring to our participants cannot be understated. Our early works focused on educational settings, and in 2023 we ran some pilots in the workplace and in museums. In 2023, we also conducted co-design activities to encourage people to show us how social robots could make a difference in their lives through interacting with the robots, coding applications, and drawing with generative AI tools.

Pepper is a humanoid robot that can recognise people and follow them with eye-gaze, and that can display visuals on a tablet located on its chest. Pepper has potential to change people’s lives in all environments, by providing support as a side-kick for increased confidence, providing repeated instruction, or simply engaging people in learning activities.

A smiling woman in a pink shirt and a white humanoid robot appearing to be about to shake hands — Pepper in Learning Hubs

Pepper presenting artwork at the QUT Cube Micro-folies

A person from the back using a block coding application on a large screen to make a game, and a grid of variations on a robot in a supermarket — Designing robots with coding and generative AI

Someone from the back looking at 3 small robots on a table. One of the robots has a screen, the others are made of 4 stacked spheres. — Miko and Dash in Techshops

Haidenhofer, Chloe, Sitbon, Laurianne, Beaumont, Chris, Hoogstrate, Maria, Korte, Jessica (2024) From research participant to co-researcher: Chloe's story on co-designing inclusive technologies with people with intellectual disability. In Flatla, David, Hwang, Faustina, Guerreiro, Tiago, Brewer, Robin (Eds.), ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. [eprints.qut.edu.au/251978/]

Soares Guedes, Leandro, Mitchell, Alicia, Sitbon, Laurianne, Landoni, Monica (2024) Social Robots in Museums: Enhancing Engagement and Accessibility for People with Intellectual Disabilities. DSAI '24: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion. [eprints.qut.edu.au/254475/]

Balasuriya, Saminda Sundeepa, Sitbon, Laurianne, Mitchell, Alicia (2024) Attributes of robots co-designed with people with intellectual disabilities to support them in diverse contexts. OzCHI 2024: Proceedings of the 36th Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. [eprints.qut.edu.au/251718/]

Mitchell, Alicia, Sitbon, Laurianne, Balasuriya, Saminda Sundeepa, Koplick, Stewart, Beaumont, Chris (2021) Social Robots in Learning Experiences of Adults with Intellectual Disability: An Exploratory Study. In Ardito, Carmelo, Lanzilotti, Rosa, Malizia, Alessio, Petrie, Helen, Piccinno, Antonio, Desolda, Giuseppe, Inkpen, Kori (Eds.), Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2021: 18th IFIP TC 13 International Conference, Bari, Italy, August 30 – September 3, 2021, Proceedings, Part I, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Information Systems and Applications, incl. Internet/Web, and HCI), pp.266-285. [eprints.qut.edu.au/214281/]

Balasuriya, Saminda Sundeepa, Sitbon, Laurianne, Brereton, Margot, Koplick, Stewart (2019) How can social robots spark collaboration and engagement among people with intellectual disability?. OZCHI'19: Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction, PervasiveHealth: Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, pp.209-220. [eprints.qut.edu.au/197792/]