Page 223 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

206 Socially Intelligent Agents

2. Our Design Approach: Cooperative Inquiry

While many participatory design techniques exist for including adult users
into the design process, these same approaches are not always appropriate for
children. Cooperative inquiry is a collection of techniques adapted and mod-
ified from existing methodologies to suit the special needs of an intergenera-
tional design team ([7], [8], [9]). Its three components are: contextual inquiry,
participatory design, and technology immersion.
Contextual inquiry, based on the work of Beyer and Holtzblatt [2], is a tech-
nique for researchers to collect data in the users’ own environments. Rather
than a single text-based note-taking method, we suggest adult and child re-
searchers each record their observations with different methods. So, adults may
record their observations with text, while children draw cartoon-like pictures
to describe their observations. (See [7] for specific note-taking techniques.)
In our participatory design sessions, we construct low-fidelity prototypes
from material such as crayons, cardboard boxes, LEGO blocks, and fabric,
because they are easy to use by both adults and children. These constructed
artifacts become the bridge for discussions between adults and children.
While adults may have access to technologies throughout their workday and
at home, the same is less common for children. Therefore, we have found
technology immersion to be an important time for children to use technologies
as much or as little as they choose.

3. Related Work

Researchers over the past few decades, recognizing both children’s innate
abilities and the potential afforded by new technologies, began designing new
computational devices that encourage self-learning ([21], [23]). Some suc-
cessful systems use robots to engage children in the discovery of scientific and
mathematical principles (e.g., [12], [16], [21]). More recently, robotic story-
tellers have also been explored and developed for children, including, SAGE
[26] and Microsoft Actimate Barney [25]. Other robots, such as KISMET
[5] and Sony’s AIBO [13], allow researchers to study social contexts such as
behaviors and emotions. Our PETS robot conveys emotions in stories by per-
forming gestures that elicit sympathetic responses from its audience.
While physical interactive environments have traditionally offered enter-
tainment (e.g., DisneyQuest), education in the sciences (e.g., [24]), and self-
expression (e.g. art museums), researchers have recently begun exploring them
as a medium for storytelling. Unlike most systems that are constructed and
programmed by technologists for the novice users (e.g., [11], [3]), props and
interactions inside StoryRooms [1] are constructed by children for themselves.