Living with Drones, Robots, and Young Children: Informing Research through Design with Autoethnography

Paper in proceeding, 2022

Supporting the study of child-drone interaction in domestic spaces is a difficult endeavour, but of value to the development of this robotic platform. This paper presents an autoethnographic study, serving as an exploratory first-person method to surface issues and opportunities in this design space. Autoethnography is increasingly popular in HCI, but to further support its application, I combine it with a Sociotechnical Systems (StS) perspective, informing the analysis and development of descriptive narratives with systems theory. This paper is based on a year-long documentation of the interaction between my family and a set of three land robots and one flying robot. I present work in the form of critical incidents and lessons learned, and a set of design opportunities for child-drone interaction to inform a research through design probe development. The combination between StS and autoethnography proved fruitful in understanding how drones may currently be brought or gifted into the home without fully considering the effects and implications of their use. Furthermore, I offer reflections on the use of autoethnography for other researchers when living and involving their family with their research material.