The Power of Color: A Study on the Effective Use of Colored Light in Human-Robot Interaction.

In times of more and more complex interaction techniques, we point out thepowerfulness of colored light as a simple and cheap feedback mechanism. Sinceit is visible over a distance and does not interfere with other modalities, itis especially interesting for mobile robots. In an online survey, we asked 56participants to choose the most appropriate colors for scenarios that werepresented in the form of videos. In these scenarios a mobile robot accomplishedtasks, in some with success, in others it failed because the task is notfeasible, in others it stopped because it waited for help. We analyze in whatway the color preferences differ between these three categories. The resultsshow a connection between colors and meanings and that it depends on theparticipants' technical affinity, experience with robots and gender how clearthe color preference is for a certain category. Finally, we found out that theparticipants' favorite color is not related to color preferences.