We set out to study whether task-based narratives could influence long-term engagement with a service robot. To do so, we deployed a Robo-Barista for five weeks in an over-50's housing complex in Stockton, England. Residents received a free daily coffee by interacting with a Furhat robot assigned to either a narrative or non-narrative dialogue condition. Despite designing for sustained engagement, repeat interaction was low, and we encountered curiosity trials without retention, technical breakdowns, accessibility barriers, and the social dynamics of a housing complex setting. Rather than treating these as peripheral issues, we foreground them in this paper. We reflect on the in-the-wild realities of our experiment and offer lessons for conducting longitudinal Human-Robot Interaction research when studies unravel in practice.

翻译：本研究旨在探讨基于任务的叙事能否影响用户与服务机器人的长期互动。为此，我们在英格兰斯托克顿的一处50岁以上居民住宅区部署了为期五周的机器人咖啡师系统。居民通过与Furhat机器人互动获得每日免费咖啡，该机器人被随机分配至叙事型或非叙事型对话条件。尽管设计初衷是维持长期互动，但实际重复交互率较低。我们遭遇了以下问题：仅有短暂好奇尝试而缺乏持续参与、技术故障、无障碍访问障碍，以及住宅区特有的社会动态。本文并未将这些视为次要问题，而是将其置于核心分析位置。我们反思了野外实验的现实困境，并就纵向人机交互研究在实践中出现偏离时如何开展提出经验教训。