Designing Sound for Social Robots: Candidate Design Principles

Abstract

How can we use sound and music to create rich and engaging human-robot interactions? A growing body of HRI research explores the many ways in which sound affects human-robot interactions and although some studies conclude with tentative design recommendations, there are, to our knowledge, no generalised design recommendations for the robot sound design process. We address this gap by first investigating sound design frameworks in the domains of product sound design and film sound to see whether practices and concepts from these areas contain actionable insights for the creation of robot sound. We then present three case studies, detailed examinations of the sound design of commercial social robots Cozmo and Vector, Jibo, and Kuri, facilitated by expert interviews with the robots’ sound designers. Combining insights from the design frameworks and case studies, we propose nine candidate design principles for robot sound which provide (1) a design-oriented perspective on robot sound that may inform future research, and (2) actionable guidelines for designers, engineers and decision-makers aiming to use sound to create richer and more refined human-robot interactions.