A Tactile Compass for Eyes-Free Pedestrian Navigation

Abstract

Abstract. This paper reports from the first systematic investigation on how to guide people to a destination using the haptic feedback of a mobile phone and its experimental evaluation. The aim was to find a navigation aid that works hands-free, reduces the users' distraction, and can be realised with widely available handheld devices. To explore the design space we developed and tested different prototypes. Drawing on the results of these tests we present the concept of a tactile compass, which encodes the direction of a location "as the crow flies" in rhythmic patterns and its distance in the pause between two patterns. This paper also reports from the first experimental comparison of such tactile displays with visual navigation systems. The tactile compass was used to continuously display the location of a destination from the user's perspective (e.g. ahead, close). In a field experiment including the tactile compass and an interactive map three conditions were investigated: tactile only, visual only, and combined. The results provide evidence that cueing spatial locations in vibration patterns can form an effective and efficient navigation aid. Between the conditions, no significant differences in the navigation performance were found. The tactile compass used alone could significantly reduce the amount of distractive interaction and together with the map it improved the participants' confidence in the navigation system.

Smartphone haptic feedback for nonvisual wayfinding

“…Jacob et al [4] proposed using patterns to communicate directions but only described a case-study evaluation. Similarly, Pielot et al [6] described using vibration patterns for sighted users. Our Pattern method is similar to methods used in [6] and [4] but the Wand and ScreenEdge methods are novel.…”

“…Similarly, Pielot et al [6] described using vibration patterns for sighted users. Our Pattern method is similar to methods used in [6] and [4] but the Wand and ScreenEdge methods are novel. Also, our work is the first to conduct a comparative evaluation of haptic wayfinding feedback for blind and low-vision users.…”

“…We present our novel Wand and ScreenEdge feedback methods and evaluate them with the Pattern method, which is based on prior work [4,6]. All use the single vibration motor, compass, and touch screen on a relatively inexpensive smartphone.…”

Navigation Problems in Blind-to-Blind Pedestrians Tele-assistance Navigation

“…There have also been at-tempts to develop special interaction techniques for presenting navigation instructions, e.g. an auditory display [17] or a tactile compass [24].…”

Automatically Generated Landmark-enhanced Navigation Instructions for Blind Pedestrians

“…Navigation aids based on special interaction techniques, e.g. an auditory display [4] or a tactile compass [19], has also been developed.…”