Design Guidelines for Schematizing and Rendering Haptically Perceivable Graphical Elements on Touchscreen Devices

ABSTRACT This paper explores the viability of new touchscreen-based haptic/vibrotactile interactions as a primary modality for perceiving visual graphical elements in eyes-free situations. For touchscreen-based haptic information extraction to be both accurate and meaningful, the onscreen graphical elements should be schematized and downsampled to: (1) maximize the perceptual specificity of touch-based sensing and (2) account for the technical characteristics of touchscreen interfaces. To this end, six human behavioral studies were conducted with 64 blind and 105 blindfolded-sighted participants. Experiments 1–3 evaluated three key rendering parameters that are necessary for supporting touchscreen-based vibrotactile perception of graphical information, with results providing empirical guidance on both minimally detectable and functionally discriminable line widths, inter-line spacing, and angular separation that should be maintained. Experiments 4–6 evaluated perceptually-motivated design guidelines governing visual-to-vibrotactile schematization required for tasks involving information extraction, learning, and cognition of multi-line paths (e.g., transit-maps and corridor-intersections), with results providing clear guidance as to the stimulus parameters maximizing accuracy and temporal performance. The six empirically-validated guidelines presented here, based on results from 169 participants, provide designers and content providers with much-needed guidance on effectively incorporating perceptually-salient touchscreen-based haptic feedback as a primary interaction style for interfaces supporting nonvisual and eyes-free information access.