A Speculative Design Approach to Investigate Interactions for an Assistant Robot Cleaner in Food Plants

The possibility to support cleaners in a food plant with an assistant robot cleaner is currently being researched. Owing to the interactive nature of a robot with collaborative applications, it is crucial to design interactions that are adapted to allow cleaners to make the best use of these. In this paper, a speculative design approach is used to pursue possible ways to interact with an assisting robot cleaner in a food plant in the future. We report findings from studies that entail observations at three food plants and eleven interviews with cleaners, which then resulted in creating four speculative design concepts. Thereafter, two focus group discussions on the four concepts revealed further insights on future interactions. The final result contains six design recommendations and a future scenario describing user interactions with an assistant robot cleaner in the context of food plants. Finally, we discuss some of our impressions and future work directions.