Development and Evaluation of a System Using Multi-element Determination to Discourage Texting while Walking

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26750003
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Design science
• Research Institution: Kogakuin University
• Principal Investigator: ZHANG JUE 工学院大学, 情報工学部, 講師 (90458993)
• Research Collaborator: SASAO Kento ; MATSUZAKI Kento ; OGAWARA Riku ; OGI Kazuki
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 歩きスマホ / アプリ開発 / 加速度センサー / インカメラ識別 / 顔角度認識 / GPS

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Texting while walking has become a social problem.Users’ behaviors are open to improvement by building potential user experiences (UXs) in which the system automatically detects the user’s behavior and issues a warning on their smartphone to remind them to stop.
We used a smartphone’s accelerometer, which can detect swinging and vibration during its use, to recognize normal walking conditions. Because acceleration-based determination provided insufficiently accurate detection, single-element trial applications were developed based on additional elements, such as walking speed (GPS) and the user’s gazing at the smartphone (face authentication) employing the built-in camera, with the aim of reducing false positives.
During walking experiments under various conditions, our multi-element decision-making application successfully determined whether or not a person was using their smartphone while walking,and reduced false positives at other times.

Free Research Field

感性情報学