01
Sense
Receive explicit user input and, where appropriate, explore contextual or affective cues.
04 · HRI Design Exploration
Mibo
An Embodied Companion for Everyday Well-being.
Project Positioning
What if reminders and emotional support felt less like notifications and more like shared actions?
Mibo is a design-led human–robot interaction exploration that connects a small expressive desktop robot with a companion app. The concept examines how touch, facial expression, arm movement, ambient light, reminders, and reflective interfaces might work together as one interaction system.
Design exploration. Unlike the three research case studies on this site, Mibo is presented as a concept and interaction-design project. The page distinguishes proposed sensing and support functions from empirically validated research findings.
Design Opportunity
Everyday well-being is not one task.
The concept brings together affective support, sedentary reminders, physical encouragement, touch acceptance, posture-related needs, and alertness into a single companion relationship rather than a collection of disconnected app notifications.
01 · Opportunity Mapping
The project begins by mapping different forms of everyday support.
The design material considers affective need, sitting fatigue, reminder fatigue, touch acceptance, posture need, and alertness across several user groups. I use this here as a design-opportunity map rather than presenting it as a population-level validated claim.
02 · Physical Form
A soft visual language, but a deliberately articulated body.
The rounded body and minimal face are designed to feel approachable, while the articulated arms create a physical interaction vocabulary: holding, reaching, guiding, celebrating, and accompanying movement. The palm surfaces provide a clear contact area for touch-based interaction.
Form development includes front / side / rear views, articulated arm components, tactile palm surfaces, and a complete 3D wireframe model.
03 · Interaction Vocabulary
The robot communicates through touch, expression, and movement—not speech alone.
Mibo’s physical interaction vocabulary is designed around a small set of legible social actions. Select each mode to see how the same robot body can communicate a different form of support.
Comfort through touch
Hand-holding turns physical contact into a deliberate interaction channel. The concept explores how a companion robot could communicate presence without relying on constant speech.
Affective contact
Companion Interface
The app extends the relationship beyond the robot’s immediate physical behavior.
It organizes comfort sessions, movement prompts, emotion-aware concepts, reflection, device control, and weekly summaries without making the robot itself carry every interaction.
04 · App Ecosystem
One companion, multiple levels of intervention and reflection.
Use the navigator to move between the major interaction layers. The app is treated as a companion to the embodied robot rather than a separate dashboard.
05 · Interaction Model
From a reminder to an ongoing human–robot relationship.
02
Respond
Use face, light, touch, and arm motion to make the robot’s response legible in the physical space.
03
Support
Turn reminders into comfort sessions, shared movement, or other concrete actions.
04
Reflect
Use mood insights and weekly summaries to help users review patterns over time.
06 · Everyday Scenarios
The same form supports different social tones.
Expression and posture shift with the interaction context—from quiet presence to concern, encouragement, and active movement.
07 · Design Reflection
The key question is not whether the robot can do more, but when embodiment adds value.
Mibo helped me explore a different interaction space from my VR research: physical presence, touch, expressive motion, and a cross-device service ecosystem. A next research step would require prototyping the sensing and robotic behaviors at functional fidelity, then testing whether embodied support changes acceptance, reminder fatigue, emotional comfort, and adherence compared with screen-only interaction.
Project typeIndependent HRI / interaction-design exploration. Presented separately from the empirically evaluated research projects on this site.