Interaction design patterns for coherent and re-usable shape specifications of human-robot collaboration

Sharing and re-using design knowledge is a challenge for the diverse multi-disciplinary research and development teams that work on complex and highly automated systems. For this purpose, a situated Cognitive Engineering (sCE) methodology was proposed that specifies and assesses the functional user requirements with their design rationale in a coherent and concise way. This paper presents this approach for the development of human-robot collaboration, focusing on a recently added component: the application of interaction design patterns to capture and share design knowledge on the shape of the human-robot interaction (i.e., the communication level). The sCE case study in the urban search and rescue domain provided the specification and assessment of functions and shape of a team-awareness display. Twenty fire fighters participated as operator of a ground or aerial robot, in several realistic earth quake scenarios to assess the functions and shapes of this display in different settings. It showed that the functions (i.e., the task level requirements and rationale) were valid, while the shape (communication level) was (yet) sub-optimal. Based on this evaluation result, a design improvement on the communication level has been proposed without the need to adjust the task-level design solution.