FlightCrew Browser : a safe browser for drivers

Abstract

Drivers have information needs they want to solve while driving, but current mobile browser interfaces can bring forth safety issues when users browse the web even though their attention is required elsewhere, as it is during driving. FlightCrew Browser is a crowd-adapted web browser using speech input, touch input, speech output, and visual output in appropriate, informative, and safe ways to empower the driver of a car to investigate an evolving information need. Our system uses human workers to do browsing interactions for the user, as well as pick data from webpages that will be returned to the user. We use three workers at a time in order to provide quality control by using a voting system to pick what answers the workers believed to be best for the user. The workers can hear the driver's query and see the last page the driver received answers from in order to provide a shared context. FlightCrew Browser provides a low-risk way for users to access the web when they are commuting or traveling alone. We evaluated our system using metrics and tests similar to those used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and found that it is safer for drivers to use than existing mobile browsers.