User Experience in Large-Scale Robot Development: A Case Study of Mechanical and Software Teams

User experience integration within software companies has been studied extensively, but studies on organizations that develop robots are scant. The physical and socially situated presence of robots poses unique design and development challenges, which companies should be able to address. This case study examines how mechanical and software teams involved in a large-scale robot development project embed UX in robot design. The case offers new perspectives on HCI research, which traditionally explores UX integration in companies from the point of views of UX specialists and software developers, with little consideration of how mechanical and software design interact. During our 12+ months collaboration with the company, we conducted non-participant observations of 30 project SCRUM meetings. Based on this data, we identify four themes concerning the role of UX in robot development, workarounds in design evaluation, requirements handling, and coordination mechanisms.