Pepper or Roomba? Effective Robot Design Type Based on Cultural Analysis between Korean and Japanese Users

From a design perspective, there are two ways in robot design approach: biologically inspired and functionally designed. It has been proved that the two robot design types could be perceived differently by the cultural background. This study explored the impact of robot design types in Korean and Japanese culture on product evaluation, product usefulness, and purchase intention. We conducted an experiment comparing a group of functionally designed robots having single functions each and a biologically inspired robot having multifarious functions itself. The results showed that Korean participants evaluated the functionally designed robot more positively than the biologically inspired robot on product evaluation and product usefulness whereas the evaluation was more positive toward the biologically inspired robot than the functionally designed robot for Japanese participants. While Korean participants were willing to purchase the functionally designed robot as they perceived it positively and useful than the biologically inspired robot, Japanese participants showed no significant difference on purchase intention by robot design types. These results suggested that robot designers should consider not only the robot design types but also the cultural differences for making better customer acceptance. The implication for the effective robot design approach is discussed according to the cultural differences.