Situational impairment due to walking with conversational versus graphical interfaces

Abstract

We present a study that investigates situationally-induced impairments that appear while walking and interacting with a smartphone using a conversational versus a graphical user interface. In a controlled experiment, participants performed a mixture of tasks under conditions that manipulated Mobility (standing or walking) and interaction Modality (graphical or conversational) while we measured walking performance, task performance, and subjective workload. Although walking while interacting did not impair task performance significantly in either case, it significantly increased perceived workload when interacting with the GUI but not when interacting with the CUI. Furthermore, compared to a control walking-only condition, walking performance deteriorated less with conversational than with graphical interaction. Finally, interaction with the conversational interface was slower than this with the graphical. The results testify to an increased potential for conversational interfaces to support walking interactions but also show that due to technology limitations this does not manifest in a task performance advantage yet.