Investigating Pressure Input and Haptic Feedback for In-car Touchscreens and Touch Surfaces

The way drivers interact with in-car centre console controls (e.g. to adjust the volume on the radio) is undergoing radical change as physical buttons and dials are replaced by virtual counterparts with the use of touchscreens and touch surfaces. This provides the opportunity to design new input techniques to improve the way on-screen widgets are operated in driving situations. This paper investigates the effectiveness of pressure-based input with haptic feedback as an alternative touch modality for in-car interactions. Two user studies were conducted: one using a driving simulator and the other inside a vehicle driven on public roads, to evaluate two main pressure-based input techniques: positional and rate-based control, and compared their performance to standard touch input and traditional physical controls in the form of a dial. The results from a list-based targeting task showed that rate-based control performed well and was comparable to standard touch input and the physical dial while users had difficulties with positional pressure input. These findings from our studies will help engineers make more appropriate design decisions when developing in-car interactions with touchscreens and touch surfaces