Mobile device use while walking, or eyes-busy mobile interaction, is a leading cause of life-threatening pedestrian collisions. We introduce CrashAlert, a system that augments mobile devices with a depth camera, to provide distance 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, dodging 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 eyesbusy 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.
