User Experience of a Smart Factory Robot: Assembly Line Workers Demand Adaptive Robots

This paper reports a case study on the User Experience (UX) of an industrial robotic prototype in the context of human-robot cooperation in an automotive assembly line. The goal was to find out what kinds of suggestions the assembly line workers – who actually use the new robotic system – propose in order to improve the human-robot interaction (HRI). The operators working with the robotic prototype were interviewed three weeks after the deployment using established UX narrative interview guidelines. Our results show that the cooperation with a robot that executes predefined working steps actually impedes the user in terms of flexibility and individual speed. This results in a change of working routine for the operators, impacts the UX, and potentially leads to a decrease in productivity. We present the results of the interviews as well as first thoughts on technical solutions in order to enhance the adaptivity and subsequently the UX of the human-robot cooperation.