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Servants, Friends, or Parents? the Impact of Different Social Roles in the Social Web of Things on User Experience

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HCI International 2022 - Late Breaking Papers. Interaction in New Media, Learning and Games (HCII 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13517))

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Abstract

The Social Web of Things (SWoT) is a paradigm comprising the social web and the Internet of Things (IoT), in which users can interact with IoT in the same way they use social network services. This study aims to investigate users’ perceptions and preferences of the social roles of the SWoT agents in smart home scenarios. We designed three social roles of SWoT agents by different social status levels (low: servant, neutral: friend, high: parent). A three-day within-subject experiment was conducted on 15 participants in a Wizard-of-Oz manner, followed by questionnaires and in-depth interviews. Through descriptive analysis of questionnaire data and qualitative analysis of the interviews, we found that the friend role is the most favored because of emotional connection and effectiveness. Users are not comfortable with conversations that involve their private affairs. Furthermore, most users would want to buy SWoT appliances if their price is within 120% of traditional appliances. These findings can guide the future design of SWoT agents to provide a better user experience.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Jiayu Yin, Qinyan Dai, Xingyu Wang, Sinan Xie, Xinyue Kang & Pei-Luen Patrick Rau

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  1. Jiayu Yin
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  2. Qinyan Dai
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  3. Xingyu Wang
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  4. Sinan Xie
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  5. Xinyue Kang
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  6. Pei-Luen Patrick Rau
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pei-Luen Patrick Rau .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computer and Information Sciences, Towson University, Towson, MD, USA

    Gabriele Meiselwitz

  2. San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, USA

    Abbas Moallem

  3. Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus

    Panayiotis Zaphiris

  4. Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus

    Andri Ioannou

  5. Soar Technology, Inc., Orlando, FL, USA

    Robert A. Sottilare

  6. MMS, Fraunhofer FKIE, Wachtberg, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Jessica Schwarz

  7. DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Xiaowen Fang

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Yin, J., Dai, Q., Wang, X., Xie, S., Kang, X., Rau, PL.P. (2022). Servants, Friends, or Parents? the Impact of Different Social Roles in the Social Web of Things on User Experience. In: Meiselwitz, G., et al. HCI International 2022 - Late Breaking Papers. Interaction in New Media, Learning and Games. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13517. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22131-6_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22131-6_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-22130-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-22131-6

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