The Power of Color: A Study on the Effective Use of Colored Light in Human-Robot Interaction

TL;DR

This study investigates how colored light can serve as an effective, simple feedback mechanism in human-robot interaction, revealing how color preferences relate to robot task outcomes and user characteristics.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential of colored light as a non-intrusive feedback tool and analyzes how user traits influence color interpretation in robot scenarios.

Findings

Color preferences vary with robot success or failure.

User traits like gender and experience influence color interpretation.

Favorite color is unrelated to task-related color preferences.

Abstract

In times of more and more complex interaction techniques, we point out the powerfulness of colored light as a simple and cheap feedback mechanism. Since it is visible over a distance and does not interfere with other modalities, it is especially interesting for mobile robots. In an online survey, we asked 56 participants to choose the most appropriate colors for scenarios that were presented in the form of videos. In these scenarios a mobile robot accomplished tasks, in some with success, in others it failed because the task is not feasible, in others it stopped because it waited for help. We analyze in what way the color preferences differ between these three categories. The results show a connection between colors and meanings and that it depends on the participants' technical affinity, experience with robots and gender how clear the color preference is for a certain category. Finally, we found out that the participants' favorite color is not related to color preferences.