« Back to Projects list

CrashAlert provides peripheral information while texting-and-walking

CrashAlert provides peripheral information while texting-and-walking

CrashAlert: Enhancing Peripheral Alertness for Eyes-Busy Mobile Interaction while Walking

Mobile device use while walking, or eyes-busy mobile in-teraction, is a leading cause of life-threatening pedestrian collisions. We introduce CrashAlert, a system that aug-ments mobile devices with a depth camera, to provide dis-tance and location visual cues of obstacles on the user’s path. In a realistic environment outside the lab, CrashAlert users improve their handling of potential collisions, dodg-ing and slowing down for simple ones while lifting their head in more complex situations. Qualitative results outline the value of extending users’ peripheral alertness in eyes-busy mobile interaction through non-intrusive depth cues, as used in CrashAlert. We present the design features of our system and lessons learned from our evaluation.

CrashAlert has received plenty of media attention:

  • MIT Technology Review – Safe Texting While Walking? Soon, There May Be an App for That – [online]
  • Asia One – New app to save you from embarrassing tumbles – [online]
  • Discovery News – CrashAlert App Clears Way to Walk and Text – [online]
  • Forbes – 3D Sensors Give Vision To CrashAlert App – [online]
  • BBC News – Avoiding the pitfalls of texting and walking – [online]
  • CTV Prime time news - [online]
  • CBC Prime time news- [online]

Project Publications

CrashAlert: Enhancing Peripheral Alertness for Eyes-Busy Mobile Interaction while Walking

Hincapié-Ramos, J.D. and Irani, P. 2013. CrashAlert: Enhancing Peripheral Alertness for Eyes-Busy Mobile Interaction while Walking. In Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '13). Paris, France. ACM. 3385-3388

Collaborators

Pourang Irani

Pourang Irani

Professor
Canada Research Chair
at University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus