A Robotic Interface for Motivating and Educating Proper Hand Sanitization using Speech and Gaze Interaction

Abstract

Hand disinfection in public spaces is of great importance in preventing infectious diseases. However not everyone sanitizes their hands using hand sanitizer dispensers, and even if they do, many of them don’t rub hands for a long enough time for the sanitizing agent to become most effective. For these reasons we designed a robotic interface for automatic hand sanitizer dispensers to motivate people to disinfect their hands more often and for a longer time. We use interactive elements like speech and gaze communication to achieve this. In our in-the-wild studies we have found that using our system resulted in 21% more hand sanitizations and a much longer hand rubbing time, which in turn leads to better public hygiene and better prevention of infectious diseases.