How to be a Robot in the Supermarket?

Robots experience the world differently than humans. Robots can sense things humans can't. Yet there are also many things that humans perceive that robots either can’t or that they perceive differently. For example, robots in supermarkets can fluently calculate inventory and tirelessly move products around. Yet, they struggle with anything unexpected, be it a broken product, a sudden change of plans, or children running through the aisles. These differences between humans and robots challenges designers. What methods can we use to design robot behaviour that acknowledges these differences instead of glossing over them by approaching robots as if they are humans? How can we take these differences as a starting point for designing ways of interacting that humans can relate to and understand? We designed a VR environment that allows humans to experience what it is like to be a robot in a supermarket on a mixed reality stage. This VR environment makes it possible to step into the shoes of the robot, see the world the way the robot does, and interact with humans as if you are a robot. In this way, we investigated how to make the robot behave in ways that are in line with its limited capacities, while also being readable by humans.