Deploying a Humanoid Robot for Student-Led Usability Research: A Transferable SOP and Wizard-of-Oz Framework

Abstract

Humanoid social robots are becoming accessible to university laboratories beyond well-funded robotics groups, yet structured guidance for deploying them in student-led usability research remains scarce. This paper presents a reusable deployment framework built around Mads, the pib humanoid robot operated at the university's Usability Engineering and Verification Lab. The framework consists of two components: a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) governing the full study lifecycle, and a browser-based Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) control setup that enables students to conduct live user studies without requiring robotics or programming expertise. We designed this framework for low-cost platforms and describe a planned proof-of-concept study in which Mads acts as an active pause guide, leading participants through short movement breaks and delivering spoken feedback in real time. The framework and its protocol are offered as a documented artefact for the HRI and HCI education communities, with empirical validation planned as explicit future work.