  Socially assistive robots (SARs) are becoming more prevalent in everyday
life, emphasizing the need to make them socially acceptable and aligned with
users' expectations. Robots' appearance impacts users' behaviors and attitudes
towards them. Therefore, product designers choose visual qualities to give the
robot a character and to imply its functionality and personality. In this work,
we sought to investigate the effect of cultural differences on Israeli and
German designers' perceptions and preferences regarding the suitable visual
qualities of SARs in four different contexts: a service robot for an assisted
living/retirement residence facility, a medical assistant robot for a hospital
environment, a COVID-19 officer robot, and a personal assistant robot for
domestic use. Our results indicate that Israeli and German designers share
similar perceptions of visual qualities and most of the robotics roles.
However, we found differences in the perception of the COVID-19 officer robot's
role and, by that, its most suitable visual design. This work indicates that
context and culture play a role in users' perceptions and expectations;
therefore, they should be taken into account when designing new SARs for
diverse contexts.
