We present the use of two methods we believe warrant more use than they currently have in the field of human-robot interaction: role-play and Hierarchical Task Analysis. Some of its potential is showcased through our use of them in an ongoing research project which entails developing a robot application meant to assist at a community pharmacy. The two methods have provided us with several advantages. The role-playing provided a controlled and adjustable environment for understanding the customers' needs where pharmacists could act as models for the robot's behavior; and the Hierarchical Task Analysis ensured the behavior displayed was modelled correctly and aided development through facilitating co-design. Future research could focus on developing task analysis methods especially suited for social robot interaction.
@article{arxiv.2509.13378,
title = {Using role-play and Hierarchical Task Analysis for designing human-robot interaction},
author = {Mattias Wingren and Sören Andersson and Sara Rosenberg and Malin Andtfolk and Susanne Hägglund and Prashani Jayasingha Arachchige and Linda Nyholm},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.13378},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
11 pages. This is a preprint version of the published paper in the International Conference on Social Robotics: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-96-3522-1_28