What is it about?

Social dining, i.e., eating with/in company, is full of meaning and cultural significance. Unfortunately, for the 1.8 million Americans with motor impairments who cannot eat without assistance, challenges can prevent them from taking part in this cherished social ritual. In this project, we worked with a community researcher to identify the challenges that people with motor impairments face during social dining and how a robot-assisted feeding system can help alleviate some of those challenges. We distill those insights into 8 design principles that should guide the development of robot-assisted feeding systems, as well as an implementation guide to make it easier for technologists to contribute to the development of robot-assisted feeding systems.

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Why is it important?

This work is important for two main reasons. First, this work centers the social dining contexts that people are likely to use their robot-assisted feeding system in. Too often, robot-assisted feeding systems are developed and evaluated in a lab setting, with the implicit assumption that they will be used in quiet, controlled, individual dining environments. This work highlights the additional layers of complexity that social contexts bring, and presents 8 guiding principles technologists should follow to ensure that the design and development of robot-assisted feeding systems incorporates considerations of social contexts. Second, our team included a community researcher, a person with motor impairments who is a potential user of this system. This unique approach ensured that the entire research process was informed by and grounded in the lived experiences and needs of a person with motor impairments. This hybrid team structure, involving both academic and community researchers, led us to reach deeper research insights, learn from each others’ diverse experiences, and find ways to adapt research norms to make them more accessible.

Perspectives

Too often, assistive technology research incorporates the target community as participants, not as equal researchers. As a result, the research questions and methodologies, the technology, and the publication, is primarily informed by people who may not be directly affected by the technology. This paper takes a step towards more equitably incorporating the target community by working with a person with motor impairments as a community researcher. We hope this work serves as a blueprint for future assistive technology works to incorporate community researchers.

Amal Nanavati
University of Washington

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Design Principles for Robot-Assisted Feeding in Social Contexts, March 2023, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3568162.3576988.
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