Informed by both literature reviews and our user research, we found that smartphone related distractions contribute significantly to road accidents, with 21% of road fatalities involving pedestrians. Research conducted by Aghabayk, Larue, and Watling highlights that signalised crosswalks create a false sense of security, leading pedestrians to underestimate the risk of vehicles passing through intersections. Our user research also indicated that people often use their smartphones while waiting at crosswalks for various reasons, including convenience, staying in touch with friends, or simply avoiding boredom. This behaviour is particularly common at signalised intersections. This emphasises the urgent need to raise awareness about the dangers of smartphone use while walking, especially in high-risk areas like crosswalks.

• Participants can shift attention from phones to our product.
• Reduce the number of people using smartphones while crossing the road.

To assess how they achieve the goal, there are two methods to evaluate:

1. Participants in the experience
2. Interview them to access engagement

There are two main categories of existing solutions, infrastructural and technological.

1. Infrastructural solution include installing eye-catching signs at intersections or crosswalks (Jain et al., 2015), and using flashing lights to grab the attention of pedestrians distracted by their phones (Larue et al., 2021). Additionally, Sweden’s musical stairs were designed to address the issue of congestion on escalators, encouraging more people to use the stairs (Linton, 2022).
2. Technological solutions include GPS-based systems that detect when users are using their phones at intersections (eDriving, 2016), or sensors attached to shoes that can sense the terrains and send warning notifications. These technologies usually need to be integrated with smartphone apps to deliver these alerts. Additionally, the "WalkSafe" app automatically turns on the phone's camera when the user is talking on their phone at an intersection. if a car is detected, the app vibrates or sends sound notifications to remind users (Wang et al., 2012).
3. Game computing
4. Interactive installations

This infrastructure will be installed around university crosswalks, particularly those with pedestrian signals. Our target audience includes university students, visitors, and staff.

1. [Participants] Pedestrians in general: University students and staff in particular.
2. [Secondary stakeholders] Authorities: Government (e.g. Road and Transport Sectors) and university.
3. [Tertiary Stakeholders] Local Communities to promote the change on roads, including online and offline.
4. [Tertiary Stakeholders] Drivers on the road.

Collaborative cooking games while waiting to cross the road

As a user approaches a crosswalk, they are distracted, looking down at their smartphone. They suddenly notice that they are standing on a screen filled with colorful cooking ingredients. Just then, a new ingredient appears from the opposite side of the street. Intrigued, the user spots another player interacting with the screen across the road and decides to join in by kicking back ingredients that don’t belong to them. However, just as they get into the game, they realize they must cross the street, as the screen prompts them to do so, interrupting their fun.

Nodes	Description
Trigger	Crosswalk disruption/waiting activities
Type/Theme	Finish the game
Site	Intersection with traffic light around university campus
Inner Trajectory	To interact with the game, pedestrians need to move their feet to send ingredients to other side, both players need to complete their own recipe
Outcomes	Interaction with game: game finished player win Not interact with game: after all, pedestrians still need to cross the road
Tools	Final Product: LED screen covered in glass, Unity, Power outlet. Only for prototype: Arduino, Ultrasonic sensor
Public Face	A game screen which our participant can see when they about to cross the street

The sequence of the Chef Cross interaction begins when the traffic light turns red and ends when it turns green. This diagram outlines various situations pedestrians may encounter during this time.

• Participant-Owned: Two people are required, positioned on opposite sides of the intersection, collaborating to complete the game. Additionally, considering that this product involves visual and physical movement, participants should have the flexibility to move and maintain a clear line of sight.
• Site-Owned: This game will operate in conjunction with the intersection traffic light and can only be played when the light is red. When it turns green, the game will automatically stop, prompting users to safely cross the road.
• Introduced by us: This installation will include both hardware and software. The hardware consists of two touch-sensitive ground monitors that will display the game view, while the software will implement a collaborative game.

Chef Cross uses gamification to attract users’ attention from their smartphones to their surroundings. The game features strong interface recognition through 2D pixel art, creating a visually appealing and nostalgic experience. Centred around a food theme, it enhances recognition and relatability for users. To further engage participants, the visual design incorporates vibrant colours and playful animations that draw them into the interaction.

After selecting a problem space and domain, we brainstormed potential solutions from multiple perspectives. These ranged from digital approaches to physical solutions. Given our aim to distract pedestrians before they cross the road without relying on phone-based solutions, we decided to create something physical that could effectively attract users, encouraging them to put their phones away. When we were exploring on exsisting solutions and potential inspirations, gamification came into our mind as a promising approach due to its universal appeal. Additionally, we discovered that many current solutions are ground-based, which influenced our decision to design a game that incorporates with crosswalk floors.

In response to this pressing issue, we developed Chef Cross, an interactive and playful solution designed to engage pedestrians and encourage them to divert their attention away from their smartphones while waiting to cross. By transforming idle waiting time into a collaborative game, Chef Cross aims to reduce smartphone usage during critical crossing moments. The product not only serves as a distraction from smartphones but also fosters social interaction among users at crosswalks.

In the prototyping phase, we settled on a simple cooking game that does not require any prior experience to participate. By making the game a standalone activity, we were able to eliminate the ethical and privacy concerns present in many existing solutions, such as the WalkSafe application (Wang et al., 2012), which detects users’ road risks by accessing their cameras.

• Game Build

Our solution, "Chef Cross", is a collaborative cooking game that requires users to kick the virtual ingredients on screens to complete their recipe, and finish the game as a team. We designed our game logic in Unity, and used Arduino sensors to facilitate physical interactions. To simulate the crosswalk floor and screens, we embedded the Arduino sensors underneath a wooden pallet, connecting them to our laptops to initialise and run the game.

• Restrictions

Ideally, the solution would be installed on both sides of the crosswalk, with the game displayed on two interactive screens. However, during the prototype phase, we were only able to simulate the gameplay display by dividing one screen into two sections, and using Arduino ultrasonic sensors to replicate kicking behaviours.

• Major Iterations

Based on feedback from the user testing, one significant issue was the difficulty in distinguishing which ingredients were interactive. Therefore, we implemented coloured background to the kickable ingredients, making it easier for users to identify them.

• Version History

Version	Changes
v0	⁠Created the game environment and randomised ingredient spawns.
v1	Created the ingredient movement by repositioning with keyboards.
v1.01	⁠Connected to 3 Arduino sensors
v1.02	1. ⁠Adjusted repositioning method to target game objects.
	2. ⁠Introduced additional ingredients for playability.
	3. ⁠Adjusted ingredient kicking method.
	4. ⁠⁠Introduced background timer (Non-UI)
v2	⁠Connected to 6 Arduino sensors
v2.01	1. Added background to the ingredients.
	2. ⁠Added more UI objects (e.g. Pop-ups)
	3. Added game completion object “Yummy”.
v2.02	1. Added audios
	2. ⁠Added starting scene and times up scenes.
v3	⁠Connected to 8 Arduino sensors
v3.01	⁠Added UI timer
v3.02 (Final Version)	dded functions to refresh and exit the game.

Click here to see the detail instruciton

Member	Role	Description
Elta Chou	Game Interface Design	Responsible for designing the visual elements of the game interface. Designed promotional materials - flyer. Contributed to the development of game logic.
Kevin Christian Hadinata	Physical Computing Programming	Focused on integrating physical computing elements using Arduino and managed the connection between the physical devices and game logic. Built the physical environment and Arduino circuits. Designed promotional materials - social media.
Wen Kao	Game Logic Programming	Focused on developing core game logic, ensuring smooth functionality during gameplay. Designed promotional materials - flyer.
Zoe Yiu	Project Manager	Oversaw project planning, coordination, and timelines. Ensured documentation was complete, clear, and up-to-date throughout the project. Led the user testing and evaluation. Designed the conferencing poster.

National Roads and Motorists’ Association (NRMA). (2019). ‘Smombies’ on our streets: NRMA Pedestrian Report (Road Safety Series, pp. 1–11). National Roads and Motorists’ Association (NRMA). https://www.mynrma.com.au/media/press-releases/nrma-pedestrian-report

Aghabayk, K., Esmailpour, J., Jafari, A., & Shiwakoti, N. (2021). Observational-based study to explore pedestrian crossing behaviors at signalized and unsignalized crosswalks. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 151, 105990. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2021.105990

Larue, G. S., & Watling, C. N. (2022). Prevalence and dynamics of distracted pedestrian behaviour at railway level crossings: Emerging issues. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 165, 106508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2021.106508

Jain, S., Borgiattino, C., Ren, Y., Gruteser, M., Chen, Y., & Chiasserini, C. F. (2015). LookUp: Enabling Pedestrian Safety Services via Shoe Sensing. Proceedings of the 13th Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, 257–271. https://doi.org/10.1145/2742647.2742669

Larue, G. S., Watling, C. N., Black, A., & Wood, J. M. (2021). Improving the safety of distracted pedestrians with in-ground flashing lights. A railway crossing field study. Journal of Safety Research, 77, 170–181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2021.02.014

Linton, S. (2022, May 10). This piano staircase social experiment revealed how music makes everything better. Classic FM. https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/piano/musical-staircase-experiment/

eDriving. (2016, August 12). Pokémon GO developers introduce warning not to play and drive | Three60 by eDriving. https://www.edriving.com/three60/pokemon-go-developers-introduce-warning-not-to-play-and-drive/

Wang, T., Cardone, G., Corradi, A., Torresani, L., & Campbell, A. T. (2012). WalkSafe: A pedestrian safety app for mobile phone users who walk and talk while crossing roads. Proceedings of the Twelfth Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems & Applications - HotMobile ’12, 1. https://doi.org/10.1145/2162081.2162089