Zenbo on Zoom: Evaluating the Human-Robot Interaction User Experience in a Video Conferencing Session.

The COVID-19 pandemic has restricted the ability of HRI researchers to undertake face-to-face HRI user studies while obeying existing social and physical distancing mandates. In this pilot study we evaluated the quality of the user experience reported by undergraduate CS/IT students after they had two online interactions with a social robot using the Zoom video conferencing system. Our results showed that there was nothing inherently detrimental to performing HRI user studies online. Indeed, based on these preliminary results, researchers who are conducting HRI user studies online can have more confidence that the online interaction modality does not negatively affect their results.