What’s up that Street? Exploring Streets Using a Haptic GeoWand

Abstract

In this paper we describe a Location-based Service (LBS) 'point to query' system called Haptic GeoWand where we use the orientation of the user to retrieve information for that user along a given street. Haptic GeoWand provides the user with location, orientation, and distance information using varying vibration patterns. This helps to reduce the visual mobile interaction required from the user. With the textual description of query results we use the vibration alarm to provide haptic feedback to the user about the availability and distance to their desired points of interests (POI) along a particular path or street. To test the usability of Haptic GeoWand we developed two mobile prototypes -whereHaptics and whichHaptics. The distance to Point of Interest (POI) information is provided by the whereHaptics which uses vibration feedback of varying frequency to represent distance to the POI. The whichHaptics uses vibration alarms of varying frequency to deliver information about the density of features along a particular street. With our system we demonstrate that the user can point and query the availability of POI along the street which are not directly visible to them but are along the path he/she intends to take. After selecting a POI, the user can follow this route without increased cognitive burden of interaction with the mobile interface. The user is not required to constantly look at the mobile screen. Haptics has proven to be powerful notification technique used to convey quantitative information. To test the system we integrated this with OpenStreetMap as the spatial data source.

A mobile interactive maps application for a visually impaired audience

“…Pielot et al [2] presented the PocketNavigator, a map-based pedestrian navigation system that uses tactile feedback to guide the user along a route. Haptic GeoWand [3], a system that provides users with location, orientation and distance information using vibration patterns through a Smartphone with a built-in GPS receiver, digital compass and an accelerometer, found to help users orient themselves in the direction of their destination and improve their spatial abilities. Rice et al [4] added haptic feedback to an auditory map by using a force-feedback mouse.…”

Using Latent Semantic Analysis to Identify Research Trends in OpenStreetMap

“…The trend "haptic for navigation" (T50.9) uncovered the use of haptic tools for navigation. The published papers concentrate on such tools and the exploration of street networks [54][55][56]58,130]. The research trends "contributors' pattern" (T50.26) and "trust in OSM data" (T50.23) provided answers to the motivation of contributors, patterns and trust in OSM data.…”

“…This core research area provided research trends related to navigation and crisis management during natural disasters. Developer teams around the globe are working on the development of information models for navigation like "mobile-based services" (T50.3) and "haptic for navigation" (T50.9) [54][55][56]58,130], web servers for using map data in crisis situations like "disaster management" (T50.13) [57,128,173], "evacuation modeling" (T50.34) [174,175] and "humanitarian efforts" (T50.32) [176]. The research on the haptic model for navigation has been conducted by Jacob et al [130] and Kaklanis et al [58] for developing a multi-modal, haptic and audio feedback interface to vibrate based on the navigation path to assist users by touch.…”

“…The routing applications developed for mobile devices can use haptic feedback mechanism to get information about the route [130]. Those with vision impairment can be greatly helped by such a technology stack.…”