"Pimp My Roomba": Designing For Personalization

We present a study of how householders personalize their domestic vacuuming robot, iRobot's Roomba (TM). in particular, we build on Blom and Monk's [3] theory of personalization that argues that personalization does not only occur naturally but can also be induced by design choices. In this study, we created a "personalization toolkit", which allowed people to customize their Roomba's appearance and distributed it to 15 households. Our observations of these households provide empirical support that personalization can facilitate positive experiences with a Roomba, and having materials to hand can increase the odds of customization. We conclude by discussing design implications for personalization.