Multidimensional tactons for non-visual information presentation in mobile devices

Tactons are structured vibrotactile messages which can be used for non-visual information presentation when visual displays are limited, unavailable or inappropriate, such as in mobile phones and other mobile devices. Little is yet known about how to design them effectively. Previous studies have investigated the perception of Tactons which encode two dimensions of information using two different vibrotactile parameters (rhythm and roughness) and found recognition rates of around 70. When more dimensions of information are required it may be necessary to extend the parameter-space of these Tactons. Therefore this study investigates recognition rates for Tactons which encode a third dimension of information using spatial location. The results show that identification rate for three-parameter Tactons is just 48, but that this can be increased to 81 by reducing the number of values of one of the parameters. These results will aid designers to select suitable Tactons for use when designing mobile displays

An Empirical Evaluation On Vibrotactile Feedback For Wristband System

With the rapid development of mobile computing, wearable wrist-worn is becoming more and more popular. But the current vibrotactile feedback patterns of most wrist-worn devices are too simple to enable effective interaction in nonvisual scenarios. In this paper, we propose the wristband system with four vibrating motors placed in different positions in the wristband, providing multiple vibration patterns to transmit multi-semantic information for users in eyes-free scenarios. However, we just applied five vibrotactile patterns in experiments (positional up and down, horizontal diagonal, clockwise circular, and total vibration) after contrastive analyzing nine patterns in a pilot experiment. The two experiments with the same 12 participants perform the same experimental process in lab and outdoors. According to the experimental results, users can effectively distinguish the five patterns both in lab and outside, with approximately 90% accuracy (except clockwise circular vibration of outside experiment), proving these five vibration patterns can be used to output multi-semantic information. The system can be applied to eyes-free interaction scenarios for wrist-worn devices.Comment: 10 pages

Investigating Perceptual Congruence Between Data and Display Dimensions in Sonification

The relationships between sounds and their perceived meaning and connotations are complex, making auditory perception an important factor to consider when designing sonification systems. Listeners often have a mental model of how a data variable should sound during sonification and this model is not considered in most data:sound mappings. This can lead to mappings that are difficult to use and can cause confusion. To investigate this issue, we conducted a magnitude estimation experiment to map how roughness, noise and pitch relate to the perceived magnitude of stress, error and danger. These parameters were chosen due to previous findings which suggest perceptual congruency between these auditory sensations and conceptual variables. Results from this experiment show that polarity and scaling preference are dependent on the data:sound mapping. This work provides polarity and scaling values that may be directly utilised by sonification designers to improve auditory displays in areas such as accessible and mobile computing, process-monitoring and biofeedback

Multi-Moji: Combining Thermal, Vibrotactile and Visual Stimuli to Expand the Affective Range of Feedback

This paper explores the combination of multiple concurrent modalities for conveying emotional information in HCI: temperature, vibration and abstract visual displays. Each modality has been studied individually, but can only convey a limited range of emotions within two-dimensional valencearousal space. This paper is the first to systematically combine multiple modalities to expand the available affective range. Three studies were conducted: Study 1 measured the emotionality of vibrotactile feedback by itself; Study 2 measured the perceived emotional content of three bimodal combinations: vibrotactile + thermal, vibrotactile + visual and visual + thermal. Study 3 then combined all three modalities. Results show that combining modalities increases the available range of emotional states, particularly in the problematic top-right and bottom-left quadrants of the dimensional model. We also provide a novel lookup resource for designers to identify stimuli to convey a range of emotions

Investigation of Thermal Stimuli for Lane Changes

Haptic feedback has been widely studied for in-car interactions. However, most of this research has used vibrotactile cues. This paper presents two studies that examine novel thermal feedback for navigation during simulated driving for a lane change task. In the first, we compare the distraction and time differences of audio and thermal feedback. The results show that the presentation of thermal stimuli does not increase lane deviation, but the time needed to complete a lane change increased by 1.82 seconds. In the second study, the influence of variable changes of thermal stimuli on the lane change task performance was tested. We found that the same stimulus design for warm and cold temperatures does not always elicit the same results. Furthermore, variable alterations can have different effects on specified tasks. This suggests that the design of thermal stimuli is highly dependent on what task result should be maximized

Effect of Information Content in Sensory Feedback on Typing Performance using a Flat Keyboard

Abstract-We investigate the effect of information content in sensory feedback on typing performance using a flat keyboard. We build a flat keyboard apparatus with haptic and auditory keyclick feedback. We evaluate and compare typing performance with key-press confirmation and key-correctness information through sensory feedback. Twelve participants are asked to touch-type a number of randomly selected phrases under various combinations of visual, auditory and haptic sensory feedback conditions. The results show that typing speed is not significantly affected by the information content in sensory feedback, but the uncorrected error rate is significantly lower when key-correctness information is available. The results also show that key-correctness information leads to more corrected errors and lowers typing efficiency. Our findings are useful for developing flat keyboards with assistive information through sensory feedback. Our study is the first step towards improving typing performance on flat keyboards by delivering more advanced and comprehensive assistive information beyond the visual channel

Mobile assistive technologies for the visually impaired

There are around 285 million visually impaired people worldwide, and around 370,000 people are registered as blind or partially sighted in the UK. Ongoing advances in information technology (IT) are increasing the scope for IT-based mobile assistive technologies to facilitate the independence, safety, and improved quality of life of the visually impaired. Research is being directed at making mobile phones and other handheld devices accessible via our haptic (touch) and audio sensory channels. We review research and innovation within the field of mobile assistive technology for the visually impaired and, in so doing, highlight the need for successful collaboration between clinical expertise, computer science, and domain users to realize fully the potential benefits of such technologies. We initially reflect on research that has been conducted to make mobile phones more accessible to people with vision loss. We then discuss innovative assistive applications designed for the visually impaired that are either delivered via mainstream devices and can be used while in motion (e.g., mobile phones) or are embedded within an environment that may be in motion (e.g., public transport) or within which the user may be in motion (e.g., smart homes)

Cyclist-aware intelligent transportation system

Abstract. Rapidly developing cities make cycling popular way of traveling around and with enhanced smart traffic light infrastructure cycling can be safer and smoother. Smartphones with an internet connectivity and advanced positioning sensors can be used to build a cost-effective infrastructure to enable cyclist-aware traffic lights system. However, such systems depends on proper time of arrival estimation which can be affected by the GPS errors which works poorly in area with tall buildings and driver behaviour. In this paper we discuss how presence of feedback from smart traffic system influence the driver awareness of the cyclist and affects the negative impact of time of arrival estimation errors. This paper gives an analysis of the existing approaches to build smart cyclist-aware traffic systems and different sources of errors that affects their performance. With designed computer appliance we evaluated the effectiveness of cyclist-aware system with and without a presence of additional haptic and audio feedback. The results show that the presence of feedback positively affects the driver awareness of cyclist and allow them to react earlier. Experiment shows that just introduction of feedback can increase the accuracy of time of arrival estimation up to 34% without any other modification to the system.Pyöräilijät tiedostava älykäs liikennejärjestelmä. Tiivistelmä. Pyöräily on suosittu tapa liikkua nopeasti kasvavissa kaupungeissa. Parannetuilla älyliikennevaloilla pyöräilystä voisi tulla turvallisempaa ja sujuvampaa. Huokean infrastruktuurin rakentamisessa pyöräilijät tiedostavaan liikennevalojärjestelmään voidaan hyödyntää älypuhelinten verkkoyhteyttä sekä pitkälle kehitettynyttä paikannusmahdollisuutta. Paikannuksen haasteena kuitenkin ovat epätarkkuus korkeiden rakennusten katveessa sekä pyöräilijöiden ja autoilijoiden käyttäytyminen. Kyseisen kaltainen järjestelmä vaatii toimivan kulunaika-arvioinnin, mikä on haastavaa GPS-paikannuksen epätarkkuuden vuoksi. Tässä julkaisussa keskustelemme siitä, kuinka älykkäästä liikennejärjestelmästä saatu palaute vaikuttaa autoilijoiden tiedostavuuteen ja sitä kautta saapumisaika-arvioiden epätarkkuuteen. Analysoimme olemassa olevia älykkäitä pyöräiljät tiedostavia liikennejärjestelmiä ja niihin vaikuttavia epätarkkuus- sekä virhelähteitä. Käytämme kehittämäämme tietokone ohjelmaa arvioimaan pyöräilijät tiedostavan järjestelmän tehokkuutta käyttäen koemuuttujina haptista ja auditiivista palautetta. Tulokset paljastavat, että saatu palaute vaikuttaa positiivisesti parantaen autoilijoiden reaktioaikaa sekä sitä kuinka he tiedostavat pyöräiljät. Kokeet osoittavat, että pelkästään esittelyn ja palautteen olemassaolo lisäävät saapumisaika-arvioiden tarkkuutta jopa 34%