I Feel it in my Fingers: Haptic Guidance on Touch Surfaces

Touch screens are on the rise and replace traditional knobs and buttons at a fast pace. However, their lack of tangible guidance and feedback can become a problem in scenarios where visual attention is scarce. Besides dynamic tactile feedback by vibrations, the usability of touch screens can be improved by static haptic structures such as shaped or struc-tured surfaces. In this paper we describe the prototype of an in-vehicle application using unimanual four-finger interac-tion and haptic guidance in order to avoid visual distraction from the primary task of driving. We built a low fidelity prototype with static haptics using an Android tablet and silicone foil. A user study showed that flexible positioning of touch buttons mapped to the user’s fingers was more convenient and produced fewer errors than fixed position-ing. A curved haptic border provided the user with orienta-tion and allowed a new selection mode: dragging buttons over the edge resulted in a reduced interaction time when compared to double tapping. We present several different variants for unimanual multifinger interaction on planar and non-planar surfaces. Our results can support the develop-ment of future concepts for blind interaction. Author Keywords Automotive user interfaces, haptic guidance, prototyping