The challenge (not) to go wild!: Challenges and Best Practices to Study HRI in Natural Interaction Settings
Robots are more and more leaving our labs and entering natural interaction settings, such as homes, care facilities, factories, kindergartens, museums, and many more. In the HRI research community, we are aware of all the challenges involved in studying autonomously behaving agents "in the wild". In order "not to go wild" we want to discuss best practices as well as pitfalls in studying robots in natural interaction settings. Specifically, we want to focus on challenges in the development of systems for everyday usage in peoples' homes and on challenges in evaluating these systems in the wild, especially with regard to long-term interaction. We want to discuss and explore common and new methodological approaches to study HRI outside the lab, and collect recommendations for fellow researchers. In tandem, we want to reflect our visions for the "new era of socially capable robots" and how we as robot developers and researchers imagine them to integrate into the fabrics of our everyday life.