Exploring the potential of Pepper in the conference realm felt akin to surveying an unknown adversary on the battlefield: while we possessed theoretical knowledge about the robot, its true capabilities remained uncertain. With eagerness, we delved into brainstorming sessions, seeking ways to leverage Pepper's unique attributes for the benefit of our clients. As Pepper seamlessly integrated into our team, we, as developers and project managers, relished the exciting quest for use cases and innovative solutions within our areas of interest.
We divided the work into sections
- Top fields: orienting in the given space and human awareness.
- Fun features: fist bump, selfie mode, animal impressions, jokes.
- Developing an overall enjoyable human-robot interaction.
We quickly realized that in order to create functional experiences with Pepper we had to take into account the following components of the human-robot interaction: the content displayed on the tablet, speech, physical behaviour and character. Those elements combined define the experience people have when chatting with the robot. It is essential to balance the number of gestures Pepper makes and content displayed in order to make it seamless and natural. We also want to avoid overwhelming the user, and find harmony between using the tablet and directly speaking to Pepper. All that is wrapped up by Pepper’s character which is basically an identity and personality we create for it: what it is fond of, daily routines, and dreams about the future.
Pepper’s vocabulary is filled with questions; we designed topics based on what we presume people would ask and answers are crafted according to our vision of who Pepper is and how we want it to be represented.
Tour Salon fair in Poznań
So here it is: happy and confident with a Snowdog on its shoulder welcoming people at Tour Salon — an annual trade fair organised with the aim to inspire people to travel and find interesting places to visit. Months of research, playing around with features and getting to know our little friend resulted in crafting the first interaction at Tour Salon fair in Poznań at the beginning of February.
In cooperation with Wielkopolska Organizacja Turystyczna, we prepared Pepper to discuss three paths which can be explored in Wielkpolska region and two quizzes: one for kids and another one for adults. We developed an interactive module which can be triggered both by speech and by clicking on the tablet in order to balance the needs of our audience.
The event turned out to be a great success: we received a lot of attention from the attendees, who were interested in Pepper and gained some information about where to go in Wielkpolska.
Poland 2050 conference in Piła
We had barely cooled off after the first event and jumped immediately into the Poland 2050 conference in Piła — an event focused on potential applications of hydrogen fuel in Poland. Taking what we learnt from Tour Salon, we modified our module by displaying a big “Say hi” note on the screen.
We implemented this because we observed that while people often approached Pepper at Tour Salon, it lacked a call to action in order to encourage people to engage in a conversation. The issue: high entry threshold. Because of this modification, there was a noticeable increase in “conversion”, which we defined as the number of people who took the step from acknowledging Pepper’s presence to starting a conversation.
The core reason to participate in the conference was inline with Snowdog’s vision to spread awareness on hydrogen: green, “zero-emission” energy source, and offer quizzes on facts about hydrogen fuel. We wanted people to learn, so we utilized fun activities to encourage this process. Here is where the quiz element comes in. With a clear interface, five questions per quiz and three possible answers, we give users the chance to test their knowledge and learn from mistakes. The outcome? A satisfying interaction and gained knowledge which is memorable for longer due to the method used to absorb it.
Lessons: What did we learn from these two encounters?
Those first two points of contact between Pepper and people were an amazing learning curve for us. We had a UX team in the field observing how people interact with Pepper, the common pitfalls and gaps in communication which should be accommodated on our side. We have collected a massive amount of feedback which we are currently incorporating in the development process for the upcoming events. The biggest points worthwhile highlighting concern the way people see Pepper:
- Adults perceive Pepper like a human, therefore often speak more naturally and from a distance hence sometimes unintelligibly.
- Kids approach Pepper like another tech novelty, which based on their learnt experiences requires certain rules to use it. This results in more insight of how to use it, and manifested in clearer speech and even looking for microphones when Pepper does not understand the question straight away.
What we learnt from observing people helps us to build experiences in the future. Equipped with do’s and don’ts we are ready to hit the market again and reach an even higher level of customer satisfaction on our upcoming quests.
What’s next? Shortly, we expect to place Pepper in a commercial space by cooperating with clients at the opening of stores, promotion events, fairs and conferences. Interested in Pepper? Send us an email with your case and we will have it reviewed by team to figure out how we can help: pepper@snow.dog
Thanks for reading!
Check out our video that goes into a bit more detail of how we work with Pepper: https://fb.watch/kUkSpRf9za/
