Which Came First: The User or the Interface? Keeping the Human in the Loop from Design Phase to Finished Product.

We believe that cognitively modeled robotic systems will be easier to use. Just as humans communicate with one another, facilitated by shared systems (linguistic, social, and cognitive), human-robot interaction can be similarly facilitated. Without cognitive capabilities, communication between a human and a robot is more difficult and it is perhaps subject to failure. Therefore, we have been involved in designing and implementing a cognitively modeled human-robot interface. Based on a pilot study of our interface, we discuss the importance of human subject studies needed to verify the various claims of a robotics interface that purports to be cognitively modeled. 1 The opinions expressed in this paper are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the author's co-workers and co- researchers. Errors of omission or commission are his alone. human cognitive capabilities, and yet we keep throwing in the term, robot or robotics. We believe that robotic systems that are cognitively modeled will be easier to use. Of course using the term "easier" in the arena of human-computer interaction is like waving a red cloth in a bullring. However, if we can abstract away from what the specifics of "easier" might entail, and simply generalize on the process that enables humans to communicate with one another, we claim that it is the shared systems (linguistic, social, and cognitive, among others perhaps) that facilitate human communication. We claim that robots that think and act more like humans will likewise be easier to interact with because they possess human cognitive capabilities and exhibit human behaviors where and when appropriate. Furthermore—and without making this an argument about a Chinese Room (Searle, 1984), we simply claim that without cognitive capabilities, communication between a human and a robot is more difficult and it is perhaps subject to failure. Cooperative and collaborative interactions may suffer because humans have difficulty interacting with machines, rather than with agents that embody cognitive skills akin to their own. Our story goes something like this: one person may be able to help another individual solve a problem because they have the ability to see the problem from the other person's point of view, share similar mental representations of events and objects and communicate in shared modes. Therefore, we wish to transfer these cognitive processes and representations to the realm of human-robot interaction. Too often, it seems, interfaces are designed by engineers and computer scientists who think they understand why and how people interact with computer/robot interfaces. Interfaces are designed in laboratory environments, logically planned, intelligently designed, skillfully implemented, with little or no actual user input, other than what the designers think actual human users might want or use. Granted, engineers and computer scientists are human users too, but many people for whom some interfaces are designed are not scientifically trained, mathematically oriented, or savvy in the ways of the CPU. Many users of our interfaces will be, dare we say, ordinary folk who may or may not be computer literate, although more and more