"Hi! I am the Crowd Tasker" Crowdsourcing through Digital Voice Assistants
Danula Hettiachchi, Zhanna Sarsenbayeva, Fraser Allison, Niels van Berkel, Tilman Dingler, Gabriele Marini, Vassilis Kostakos, Jorge Gonçalves
Abstract
Inspired by the increasing prevalence of digital voice assistants, we demonstrate the feasibility of using voice interfaces to deploy and complete crowd tasks. We have developed Crowd Tasker, a novel system that delivers crowd tasks through a digital voice assistant. In a lab study, we validate our proof-of-concept and show that crowd task performance through a voice assistant is comparable to that of a web interface for voice-compatible and voice-based crowd tasks for native English speakers. We also report on a field study where participants used our system in their homes. We find that crowdsourcing through voice can provide greater flexibility to crowd workers by allowing them to work in brief sessions, enabling multi-tasking, and reducing the time and effort required to initiate tasks. We conclude by proposing a set of design guidelines for the creation of crowd tasks for voice and the development of future voice-based crowdsourcing systems.