Understanding User Expectations Across Communication Modalities in Human-Robot Interaction: An Elicitation Study

Human-robot communication is essential to effective human-robot interaction. One way to improve this communication is to design systems that align with users’ mental models and expectations about how robots should convey information. However, little research has examined these expectations across robot morphologies (mobile robot, humanoid robot, manipulator, drone) and behaviors (“Navigation Intention,” “Operating State,” “Affect,” “Target Identification,” “Interaction Intention”). This work addresses that gap through an elicitation study investigating users’ expected communication modalities for human-robot communication. Auditory communication was the most expected modality on average by participants across all scenarios (74.4%), closely followed by visual communication (69.8%), with tactile communication coming in at a distant third (16.3%). However, the dominant expected communication modality in any given scenario varied depending on the morphology and behavior included. Additional analysis highlights the plausibility that these expectations are driven more by behavior than by morphology. These findings can be leveraged to inform the design of future communication strategies and facilitate more effective human-robot interactions.