"I can't get round": Recruiting Assistance in Mobile Robotic Telepresence

Boudouraki, Andriana; Fischer, Joel E.; Reeves, Stuart; Rintel, Sean

Abstract

Via audiovisual communications and a controllable physical embodiment, Mobile Robotic telePresence (MRP) systems aim to support enhanced collaboration between remote and local members of a given setting. But MRP systems also put the remote user in positions where they frequently rely on the help of local partners. Getting or 'recruiting' such help can be done with various verbal and embodied actions ranging in explicitness. In this paper, we look at how such recruitment occurs in video data drawn from an experiment where pairs of participants (one local, one remote) performed a timed searching task. We find a prevalence of implicit recruitment methods and outline obstacles to effective recruitment that emerge due to communicative asymmetries that are built into MRP design. In a future where remote work becomes widespread, assistance through remote work technology like MRPs needs close examination at a fundamental interactional level, taking into account how communicative asymmetries are at play in everyday use of such technologies.

Citation

Boudouraki, A., Fischer, J. E., Reeves, S., & Rintel, S. (2021). "I can't get round": Recruiting Assistance in Mobile Robotic Telepresence. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 4(CSCW3), Article 248. https://doi.org/10.1145/3432947

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 31, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jan 5, 2021
• Publication Date: Jan 5, 2021
• Deposit Date: Jan 12, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 13, 2021
• Journal: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
• Electronic ISSN: 2573-0142
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Issue: CSCW3
• Article Number: 248
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3432947
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5223030
• Publisher URL: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3432947