This group wanted to find out how personalization hardware affected users. Much research has been done in the past on software personalization, like the desktop, and the background in gmail, but not much has been done for hardware personalization. To do this experiment the group distributed 30 roombas to 30 different households. 15 houses recieved customization kits and vouchers for free roomba skins that they could order online. The other 15 houses were not informed about customization at all. 6 of the 15 houses that received customization stuff actually personalized their robots. Reasons for personalizing the robot were recorded by the team. The main reasons for personalizing was to either make the robot stick out or to make it disappear. In all cases where personalization occurred the owners felt closer to the robot and felt like it was more of an appliance than just technology doing stuff in their home.
This is important to the acceptance of technology into the everyday household. Right now it is primarily "techies" that run modern tech appliances, and this is because they think they are cool. The general public sees them as high tech and expensive, not necessarily worth their value. By adding personalization this can be alleviated. The robots become everyday things that the owners enjoy seeing and are okay with their presence. This is important as the home moves towards being very technology based and computer oriented.
I think that hardware personalization is a great idea for the non-techy, but at the same time it seems sad that people would have to resort to decals just to feel comfortable about new hardware and technology! I guess that's the concept behind bumper stickers, too...
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