Real-World HRI in Public and Private Spaces: Successes, Failures, and Lessons Learned (PubRob-Fails 2025)

Held in conjunction with IEEE RO-MAN 2025
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Workshop date: 29 August 2025

Workshop overview

As robots become more integrated into everyday life—serving as receptionists, tour guides, home assistants, or companions—they face the complex realities of real-world deployment: unpredictable environments, dynamic social contexts, and human expectations that often exceed current capabilities.

PubRob-Fails 2025 invites researchers, designers, and practitioners to reflect critically on the technical, social, and organisational challenges of deploying robots in public and private spaces. We encourage open discussion of both successes and failures, including stories that rarely make it into traditional conference sessions—those involving unexpected breakdowns, messy real-world data, and valuable lessons learned.

This workshop offers a platform to explore what happens when robots meet reality, and how the HRI community can grow by sharing not only what works, but what doesn’t. Embracing a culture of “failing forward,” we aim to transform setbacks into steppingstones for progress, fostering a culture of error, acknowledgement, and transparency that can unlock the full potential of HRI research. We believe that sharing what didn't work is just as valuable as what did.

This workshop is intended for HRI researchers, roboticists, designers, UX professionals, and others interested in the complexities of real-world interaction. This workshop will be in-person only. Given the sensitive and reflective nature of the discussions—particularly around failure, lessons learned, and behind-the-scenes realities—we believe that a shared physical space is essential to foster open, candid, and constructive conversations.

Invited speakers

• Randy Gomez, Honda Research Institute Japan

• Tony Belpaeme, Ghent University

• Merihan Alhafnawi, Princeton University

Papers

• Full paper (lightning talk): Why Report Failed Interactions With Robots?! Towards Vignette-based Interaction Quality
  Agnes Axelsson, Merle Reimann, Ronald Cumbal, Hannah Pelikan, and Divesh Lala

• Full paper (lightning talk): Observations of atypical users from a pilot deployment of a public-space social robot in a church
  Andrew Blair, Peggy Gregory, and Mary Ellen Foster

• Short paper (poster): Care Robots for Aging Societies: Integration of Edge-Assisted Robotic Monitoring and Emotion-Adaptive Interaction
  Midori Sugaya

• Short paper (poster): Into the Wild: When Robots Are Not Welcome
  Shaul Ashkenazi, Gabriel Skantze, Jane Stuart-Smith, and Mary Ellen Foster

As part of PubRob-Fails 2025, we also plan to create a “Wall of Failures,” an anonymous collection of HRI mishaps, tough lessons, and unexpected outcomes. Anyone from the community is welcome to contribute, whether or not they attend the workshop. Feel free to contribute or follow: https://padlet.com/oliverchojnowski/mein-schickes-padlet-sw5mvg2la3dbjv0t

Agenda

The PubRob-Fails 2025 agenda is available here.

Organisers

• Mary Ellen Foster, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

• Ana Müller, Cologne Cobots Lab, TH Köln - University of Applied Sciences, Germany

• Manuel Giuliani, Kempten University of Applied Sciences, Germany

• Ron Petrick, Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom

• Caterina Neef, Cologne Cobots Lab, TH Köln - University of Applied Sciences / SARAI Lab, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany

• Sara Cooper, IIIA-CSIC, Spain

• Michael Schiffmann, Cologne Cobots Lab, TH Köln - University of Applied Sciences, Germany

• Alexander Eberhard, Cologne Cobots Lab, TH Köln - University of Applied Sciences, Germany

• Oliver Chojnowski, Cologne Cobots Lab, TH Köln - University of Applied Sciences

• Barbara Bruno, SARAI Lab, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany
  
  

Questions about PubRob-Fails 2025? Please contact Mary Ellen Foster or Ana Müller.