Design Research

This project’s goal to was create a paper. Exploring research is done for the implementation of physical behaviour in Smart Home Assistants for a multi-user scenario. Repertory grid was used to understand the perception of different prototypes that had added physical behaviour. We tested 8 groups of 3 people, resulting in 24 participants, who were all students. The participants used the prototypes within their group, then covered the repertory grid individually and finally discussed the prototypes together. The findings and discussion can be used as a framework for future designers of Smart Home Assistants that will be used in a multi-user scenario. An important finding, is that as soon as a physical behaviour becomes too vague or unclear, this will have a big influence on the interpretation of a Smart Home Assistant. This influences the device negatively for multi-user interaction.

The project taught me about the design research process and inspired me about movement in product design. Next to that, I improved my prototyping skills, with the inclusion of moving parts. The project was tested with over 20 participant, which taught me about setting up a efficient user test.