Designing Telepresence Robots to Support Place Attachment

TL;DR

This paper investigates how telepresence robots can be designed to foster emotional connections and place attachment by enabling remote users to experience meaningful places with social interaction.

Contribution

It explores the design space of telepresence robots for supporting place attachment and presents a prototype tested with users to identify key design considerations.

Findings

Four user personas identified in remote experiences

Social participation enhances place attachment

Design implications for future telepresence robots

Abstract

People feel attached to places that are meaningful to them, which psychological research calls "place attachment." Place attachment is associated with self-identity, self-continuity, and psychological well-being. Even small cues, including videos, images, sounds, and scents, can facilitate feelings of connection and belonging to a place. Telepresence robots that allow people to see, hear, and interact with a remote place have the potential to establish and maintain a connection with places and support place attachment. In this paper, we explore the design space of robotic telepresence to promote place attachment, including how users might be guided in a remote place and whether they experience the environment individually or with others. We prototyped a telepresence robot that allows one or more remote users to visit a place and be guided by a local human guide or a conversational agent. Participants were 38 university alumni who visited their alma mater via the telepresence robot. Our findings uncovered four distinct user personas in the remote experience and highlighted the need for social participation to enhance place attachment. We generated design implications for future telepresence robot design to support people's connections with places of personal significance.