Socializing with Olivia, the Youngest Robot Receptionist Outside the Lab

In this paper we present the evaluation results of an exploratory study performed in an open environment with the robot receptionist Olivia. The main focus of the study was to analyze relationships between the robot's social skills and the perceived overall interaction quality, as well as to determine additional important interaction quality features with potential general validity. Our results show positive correlations between the investigated factors, as the ability to socialize with humans achieved the second highest correlation with the perceived interaction quality. One of the most relevant functional aspects for the interaction quality was found to be the ability to respond fast. Performance abilities, such as speech or object recognition were, surprisingly, considered less important. The voice pleasantness was regarded as one of the most important non-functional aspects being ranked higher than a nice physical appearance