Frova, Davide Landoni, Monica Arreghini, Simone Paolillo, Antonio 2026 We present an interface designed to operate social robots in a highly unpredictable context: a classroom, supporting user-centered design of innovative child–robot interactions. Having a functional prototype enables rich user data elicitation and analysis, essential for understanding user needs and deriving meaningful requirements. Deploying robots outside controlled laboratory conditions into a classroom, however, introduces challenges related to safety, robustness, and managing multiple, often noisy, interactions. Our system addresses these challenges by providing a safe, flexible and resilient interface that ensures safe operation while allowing improvisation and adaptability to unpredictable children's behaviors. The interface aims to be intuitive for non-expert users and support everyday teaching and learning activities in the classrooms. By prioritizing usability, modularity, and robustness, our approach facilitates iterative design, accelerates the transition from Wizard-of-Oz prototyping to autonomous behaviors, and contributes to making child–robot interaction technologies more accessible and practical for diverse application domains. application/pdf https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1337506 https://susi.usi.ch/usi/documents/337506 https://susi.usi.ch/documents/337506/files/3757279.3788810.pdf eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1145/3757279.3788810 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/ark/12658/srd1337506 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC BY ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI '26). - Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). - 2026, p. 1308–1312 Human–robot interaction Social robots User interface design Wizard-of-Oz info:eu-repo/classification/udc/004 A wizard for kids : a platform for improvised child–robot interactions http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_5794