Qualitative interview study with seven long-term users of Beam or Double telepresence robots, a video tablet on a remotely driven base. Each had used one in daily life for 3 months to 4 years.
Seven long-term usersSeven men aged 44 to 61 who used Beam or Double robots for remote work, research or family visits.
Online interviewsOne interview each, about 45 minutes, about everyday life through the robot.
Phenomenological analysisThematic analysis of the transcripts focused on first-person experience, read alongside the sociology of Garfinkel, Goffman and Sacks.
BWhat the study found
What the robot could not dolimits users described after months or years of use
•Interviewees described being unable to open doors, press lift buttons or grab things.Interviewees also still struggled to see and hear well. Being unable to manipulate anything left robot users depending on people nearby.
•Interviewees described losing all sight, sound and movement when the robot's connection dropped.Connections often dropped in lifts. The robot user then had to wait for someone nearby to notice and help.
Feeling presentwhat presence meant to long-term users
•Interviewees described feeling part of the local community, but never physically there.Asked whether they felt present, long-term robot users gave qualified answers.
•Interviewees described the robot's body helping most when everyone else was in the room.Mobility helped a lone remote attendee get noticed and included. When work happened in video calls, the robot's body mattered much less.
•Interviewees described local people remarking on robot mistakes, often with laughter.Local people did not politely overlook these mistakes as they might for a colleague in person. A robot also could not slip out of a room quietly.
Rethinking presencewhat the paper argues
•The paper argues presence means taking part and being treated as present by others.Drawing on Goffman and Sacks, the authors argue this differs from a psychological feeling of being there.
CKey takeaway
Remote users of mobile robotic telepresence can feel present by being in on the action, joining local activity and being treated as present. Doing being ordinary, taking part without being remarked on, may matter more than recreating being there.
Made for this site with AI assistance from the verified research brief. It is not the paper's own figure.
Abstract
Mobile Robotic Telepresence (MRP) systems afford remote communication with an embodied physicality and autonomous mobility, which is thought to be useful for creating a sense of presence in hybrid activities. In this paper, drawing on phenomenology, we interviewed seven long term users of MRP to understand the lived experience of participating in hybrid spaces through a telepresence robot. The users’ accounts show how the capabilities of the robot impact interactions, and how telepresence differs from in-person presence. Whilst not feeling as if they were really there, users felt present when they were being able to participate in local action and be treated as present. They also report standing out and being subject to behaviour amounting to ‘othering’. We argue that these experiences point to a need for future work on telepresence to focus on giving remote users the means to exercise autonomy in ways that enable them to participate — to be ‘in on the action’ — rather than in ways that simply simulate being in-person.
Research brief
By Andriana Boudouraki, Joel E. Fischer, Stuart Reeves, and Sean Rintel.
Takeaway: Presence in telepresence is better understood as being 'in on the action' than as feeling 'there'. Long-term robot users felt present when they could take part and others treated them as present. But the robot also made them conspicuous, since others remarked on its mistakes rather than politely overlooking them.
Why this matters
What was known
Studies report that telepresence robots are well received, yet also list many shortfalls, and little attention is paid to what 'presence' means. The few studies that examined presence in depth looked at single uses, mostly in experimental settings. At the same time, the literature reports many shortfalls of the technology, and lack of use in the real world also suggests there are significant limitations.(§2.1, p. 2)
What this paper adds
Interviews with people who had used telepresence robots in everyday life for months to years, rather than once in an experiment. Their accounts are read through phenomenology and the interactional sociology of Garfinkel, Goffman and Sacks. (§2.2, p. 2)
Who it matters to
Designers and researchers of telepresence, teleoperation and hybrid participation. Designers and researchers might benefit from asking users not whether they felt 'there' but whether they were able to practically participate in the activities unfolding in the local environment.(§6.1, p. 8)
Research question
What is the lived experience of participating in hybrid spaces through a mobile telepresence robot, for long-term users? How do the robot's capabilities affect interactions, and how does telepresence differ from in-person presence?
Method and data
Design
Qualitative interview study drawing on phenomenology and Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).
Setting
Online interviews via Microsoft Teams with people who had used Beam and/or Double telepresence robots in their regular daily life (not experiments), for remote work, research, or connecting with family at home.
Participants / data
Seven long-term telepresence users. Seven men, ages 44-61. Length of use ranged from 3 months to 4 years.
Duration
One interview each, about 45 minutes.
Analysis
Thematic analysis of transcribed interviews, taking the position of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. No frequency counts reported.
Findings
Robots can't open doors. Even after months or years of everyday use, telepresence robot users still struggled to see and hear well. Their main frustration was being unable to manipulate anything, from doors to lift buttons, which left them depending on others. #
“I can't open doors, I can't go into the lift, I can't push the button in the lift, I can't go up and down stairs. I can't reach, grab, point.”
Losing signal means losing everything. When the robot lost its internet connection, often in a lift, its user could no longer see, hear, speak or move, and had to wait for someone nearby to notice and help. #
“Essentially, the remote user's experience may be described as becoming incapacitated; their vision is lost, their hearing is lost, their access into the interaction taking place in the local environment is lost.”
Present, but not 'there'. Asked whether they felt present, long-term users gave qualified answers. They felt part of the local community, but never as if they were physically in the remote place. #
“I did [feel present], yeah. Clearly, not literally. Yeah, but it certainly made me feel like I was in the community.”
A body helps when the action is in the room. The robot's mobility and physical body helped users get noticed and included mainly when they were the only remote attendee and everyone else was in the room. When work happened in video calls, it mattered much less. #
“As such, we see that the embodied, mobile aspect of MRP is not what inherently creates a sense of presence; it does it when those features are relevant to the interaction.”
Robot users can't blend in. Local people did not politely overlook robot users' mistakes as they might for a colleague in person. The robot drew attention and could not slip out of a room quietly, and its errors were remarked on, often with laughter. #
“then the room just erupted in giant laughter, so it was kinda comical, but for me it was kind of really challenging because there was no way for me to gracefully leave that room.”
Presence is granted by others. Drawing on Goffman and Sacks, we argue that presence is better understood as being able to take part in the interaction and being treated by others as present. This is a different thing from a psychological feeling of being there. #
“For telepresence users, when they were seen and paid attention to, it meant that the group was able to accept their performance of being as much a part of the social milieu as the locals.”
Questions this paper answers
Do telepresence robots make remote people feel like they are really there?
Not in the sense of feeling physically there. Long-term robot users felt part of the local community, but never as if they were in the remote place. We argue presence is better understood as being 'in on the action' (able to take part, and treated by others as present). (See §4.2, p. 5; §4.2.2, p. 6; §5.2, pp. 7–8.)
Do the practical problems of telepresence robots go away with experience?
No. Even after months or years of use, people still struggled to see and hear well. They could not open doors or press lift buttons, and were left helpless when the connection dropped, so they depended on people nearby. (See §4.1.3, p. 5; §4.1.4, p. 5.)
Can a remote person on a telepresence robot blend in like an ordinary colleague?
Rarely. The robot draws attention, so its user cannot slip out of a room unnoticed. Local people tend to remark on or laugh at their mistakes rather than tactfully overlook them, as they might in person. Standing out can help a remote user get noticed, but marks them as different. (See §4.2.3, pp. 6–7.)
When does a robot body actually help a remote person?
When the action is physically in the room. Mobility and a visible body helped a lone remote attendee command attention among people who were all present in person. When everyone was in a video call or chat, users simply joined there instead. (See §4.2.2, p. 6.)
Contributions and implications
Design for participation in the action, not for giving remote users the same capabilities as people in the room. Different capabilities may serve them better, and the right solution depends on the activity. Specifically we call for the field to move away from thinking about hybrid media in terms of how well they allow a remote user to have the same capabilities as the local users(§6.1, p. 8)
Where work happens in chat and shared documents, access to these may include remote users more than robot mobility. For instance, when work (especially in meetings) is focused on chat and shared documents, easy access to those resources may be more valuable for including remote users in the action of office life(§1, p. 1)
Autonomy might come from 'unrealistic' capabilities such as contactless object manipulation or mixed reality, or from bringing local users into the digital space.
Limitations
Small, narrow sample of middle-aged men in academia or the tech industry. Experiences of less privileged users are unknown. The demographics of our participants is a clear limitation to this study.(§5.4, p. 8)
Long-term everyday users were hard to find. Recruitment through social media and organisations failed, so participants were found by email and word of mouth. We were able to find the users included in this study by email and word of mouth.(§3.1, p. 3)
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Concepts
Mobile Robotic Telepresence (MRP)
The technology studied, such as the Beam and Double robots: MRP is comprised of a remotely controlled mobile base, that carries a tablet for videoconferencing(§1, p. 1)
Phenomenology
The lens that shaped our interviews and analysis: Phenomenology, originating in philosophy, is concerned with understanding experience and consciousness from the first-person perspective(§1, p. 1)
Gearing into the action
Our reframing of what presence should mean: we propose a respecification from a focus on simulating a sense of "being there" [15], to instead focus on a remote user's ability to participate(§1, p. 1)
Doing being ordinary
Sacks's term for the everyday work of acting unremarkably, which telepresent users often could not achieve. For them it means: "Doing being ordinary" when telepresent is not about being just like local people but rather about acting in ways that fit with the interior logic of social interaction.(§5.3, p. 8)
How to cite
Andriana Boudouraki, Joel E. Fischer, Stuart Reeves, and Sean Rintel. 2023. "Being In On The Action" in Mobile Robotic Telepresence: Rethinking Presence in Hybrid Participation. HRI 2023. https://doi.org/10.1145/3568162.3576961
This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text. Page numbers refer to this PDF.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{boudouraki2023being,
author = {Boudouraki, Andriana and Fischer, Joel E. and Reeves, Stuart and Rintel, Sean},
title = {"Being In On The Action" in Mobile Robotic Telepresence: Rethinking Presence in Hybrid Participation},
organization = {ACM},
booktitle = {HRI 2023},
year = {2023},
month = {March},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3568162.3576961},
doi = {10.1145/3568162.3576961},
}