Toni Pakkanen has studied in his doctoral dissertation how to create these user interfaces so that they would be intuitive and understandable. By using vibrotactile user interfaces he studied, how using these kinds of user interfaces could help in usage scenarios where users cannot focus on the usage of the devices, like while driving a car.
Tactile feedback can be created in user interfaces by using vibrotactile actuators within devices. These actuators are commonly small electric motors engineered by varying methods to transfer movement momentum to vibration felt on the surface of the device. In modern smart phones, these are used to create vibration alerts everyone is familiar with, like vibration on phone ring and small vibration while selecting buttons.
This kind of feedbacks can be called as simple tactile feedback. Earlier research in the field of study has shown that this kind of feedback in the user interfaces makes use of device faster and more accurate.
- These days users encounter touch screens everywhere. Not only in smart devices they use, but also in cars and public areas. Using these devices requires user’s attention because interaction is based solely on touch supported by sight. This becomes a problem in usage environments, where users’ attention should be elsewhere than in using the device, like while driving, explains Pakkanen.
Toni Pakkanen investigated in his dissertation, how more comprehensive tactile feedback could be created by using rhythmic vibrations to create Tactons, which are kind of touchable icons. These are short, recognizable, and distinguishable vibrations for representing the wanted thing in the user interface. The doctoral thesis was focused on how to create a number keypad with tangible numbers that can be felt on touch screen. This kind of user interface can be used without focusing sight at the device.
By creating user interfaces including comprehensive tactile feedbacks Toni Pakkanen studied how these kinds of interfaces help users in driving context while using devices. These studies, conducted in a driving simulator, showed that even though comprehensive vibrotactile feedback did not improve the speed or accuracy of the device usage itself, using them diminished driving errors users made while using the device.
- One common usage scenario with smart devices is to input information in them and select correct buttons to enter the information. In my studies I focused on a simple usage scenario, selecting numbers. With these kind of user interfaces, it was possible to investigate deeper, what would be the benefits of using more comprehensive vibrotactile feedback in the user interfaces.
- Earlier research had been focusing to study either, if using tactile confirmation feedback would benefit the use of device, or to create specific user interfaces for special needs. An open question remained, how tactile feedback could be used more generally in the user interfaces and if these user interfaces have additional benefits for the users, Toni Pakkanen opens the theme of studies.
Finally, by using these techniques, Pakkanen studied if similar benefits could be achieved while using informative vibrotactile feedback with a traditional audio interface in a navigation task. Similar benefits were found while using more comprehensive tactile feedback than earlier with visual number keypad task. By using more comprehensive vibrotactile feedbacks together with audio user interface, there were no improvements in the navigation task, but users made less driving errors in the simulated driving.
- The results from these experiments confirm that using comprehensive haptic user interfaces do not improve the interaction task itself. But, when task is performed as a secondary task, like while using devices while driving, more comprehensive vibrotactile feedback helps as a part of the user interface to perform better with the main task, like driving.
- I would like to emphasize though, that while the baseline in the experiments was to drive without using the devices, this was a lot safer than while driving by using the device. Thus, I would not recommend using the devices while driving. However, providing these kinds of vibrotactile in automotive user interfaces for the tasks people use while driving would be recommendable, summarizes Pakkanen the results of his dissertation.
The doctoral dissertation of M.Sc. Toni Pakkanen in the field of Interactive Technology titled Supporting Eyes-Free Human–Computer Interaction with Vibrotactile Haptification will be publicly examined at the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences of Tampere University at 12 p.m. on Friday 18 December 2020. The opponent will be Professor Jan van Erp from the University of Twente and Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO, Netherlands. Professor Roope Raisamo from the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences will act as the custos.
The audience can follow the event via remote connection at Teams.
The dissertation is available online at
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-1802-4
Photo: Arimo Mustonen