The Forgotten in HRI: Incidental Encounters with Robots in Public Spaces

HRI research has predominantly focused on laboratory studies, producing a fundamental understanding of how humans interact with robots in controlled settings. As robots transition out of research and development labs into the real world, HRI research must adapt. We argue that it should widen its scope to explicitly include people who do not deliberately seek an interaction with a robot (users) but find themselves in coincidental presence with robots. We refer to this often-forgotten group as InCoPs (incidentally copresent persons). In this one-day workshop, we aim to explore studies, design approaches, and methodologies for testing robots in real-world environments, considering both users and InCoPs. The first part of the workshop will consist of invited talks addressing the subject from different angles, followed by plenary discussions. Building upon this common basis, participants will work in small groups to explore (1) human behavior, (2) robot and interaction design and (3) methodology, respectively. This group phase will focus on the exemplary scenario of delivery robots in urban environments. At the end, key aspects across all three topics will be identified and discussed to map out research needs and desirable next steps in the field.