Paper (Demo)

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 structured surfaces. In this paper we describe the prototype of an in-vehicle application using unimanual four-finger interaction 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 positioning. A curved haptic border provided the user with orientation 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 dif-ferent variants for unimanual multifinger interaction on planar and non-planar surfaces. Our results can support the development of future concepts for blind interaction.