Investigating the Information Transfer Efficiency of a 3x3 Watch-back Tactile Display

Abstract

A watch-back tactile display (WBTD) is expected to be a viable supplement to the user interface limitations of a smartwatch. However, its design requires that many design parameters such as tactor types and stimulus patterns be determined. We conducted a series of experiments to explore the design space of a WBTD consisting of 3×3 tactors. We demonstrated that tactor types and the temporal patterns and locus of a stimulus produce statistically significant effects on the efficiency of a WBTD. The experimental results can act as a practical guideline for the design of an efficient WBTD. Author KeywordsWatch-back tactile display; 3x3 tactor array; information transfer efficiency.

VibroMap

“…On-body computing opens up a wide variety of opportunities for interaction, e.g., leveraging the skin as a platform for interaction [21,63,64], using electrical muscle stimulation to move users' limbs [36] and providing feedback for prosthetic limbs [34]. Vibrotactile interfaces on the body for output are particularly attractive as they are not restricted to body locations that are visible, which leads to their use across a diverse range of body locations, e.g., on the hand [18-20, 33, 42], wrist [7,30,31,35], forearm [37,38,45,47,51,70], upperarm [3,4,58], back [23,41,60], stomach [28], thigh [56] and lower leg [9]. Their usage spans a wide range of interaction scenarios, such as speech communication [46,67,70], affective communication [43], progress monitoring [7], learning gestures [20], spatial guidance [19,33], motion guidance [51,56] and navigation [13,15,24].…”

“…Their usage spans a wide range of interaction scenarios, such as speech communication [46,67,70], affective communication [43], progress monitoring [7], learning gestures [20], spatial guidance [19,33], motion guidance [51,56] and navigation [13,15,24]. Srikulwong and O'Neill [57] Meier et al [40] Konishi et al [27] Israr and Poupyrev [23] Tam et al [59] Cauchard et al [7] Leong et al [34] Lee et al [30] Lee and Starner [31] Liao et al [35] Zhao et al [70] Luzhnica and Veas [38] Luzhnica et al [37] Pfeiffer et al [45] Schönauer et al [51] Reinschluessel et al [47] Stratmann et al [58] Bark et al [4] Alvina et al [3] Spelmezan et al [56] Chen et al [9] Wong et al [67] Dobbelstein et al [13] Karuei et al [25] Cholewiak and Collins [12] Cholewiak et al [11] Schneider et al [49] Krüger et al [28] Spelmezan [55] Ertan et al [16] Aggravi et al [1] Ho et al…”

“…Prior research in HCI studied haptic feedback for many applications, ranging from navigation [16], motion coaching [50,55], passive motor skill learning [53], driving [22,28], and human-robot interaction [1]. Depending on the use-case, haptic feedback is proposed on many different body locations, e.g., upper arm [3,4,58], forearm [37,38,45,47,51,70], wrist [7,14,30,31,35], stomach [28], thigh [56], legs [9], and feet [61].…”

Exploiting Ambient Light Sensor for Authentication on Wearable Devices

“…Also the wearer's skin can be used as an interface to input or get feedback from wearable devices in skin touch/feedback UI. Recent projects and examples such as SkinWatch [11], Skin Drag [12], and 3x3 WBTD [13] fall into this category. Gesture UI is a contact-less type of UI that can be used in mid-air over the wearable device such as AirTouch [14] and is usually based on gesture and activity recognition as in zSense [15].…”

Intuitive Risk Information Display via Skin for Wearable Devices

“…Various studies on tactile sensation have been being conducted wherein information is presented through the skin [1]- [3]. Lee [4] and Sawada [5] succeeded in recognizing patterns and letters for absolute value information. However, with these methods, it took time to present the information, and the user needs to concentrate on recognizing it.…”