The purpose of this paper is to present our design philosophy for service robotics research and development and to describe our current efforts along this line. Our approach begins with a discussion of the role of service robotics and some features that are unique to them. We then describe our design philosophy that emphasizes compromise and practicality in design. We will use this philosophy in the design and implementation of an intelligent robotic-aid system, based on ISAC and HERO. ISAC is a stationary service robot designed to feed physically handicapped people that is operated by voice command. HERO is a small mobile robot integrated into the system to provide new functionality for the user. We will make use of our design philosophy to solve some of the robot navigation problems and describe how our approach will help to solve these problems efficiently. Some problems will be approached by a technical solution, and other problems will be solved through an expanded user interface and the intelligence of the user. Performance of a useful service at a reasonable cost through close robot-user interaction is our goal.