Virtual haptic search tools: The white cane in a haptic computer interface

Certec has been working on touch interfaces – haptic interfaces – since 1995, exploring the possibilities they can offer people with different kinds of disabilities. With a haptic computer interface a blind person can learn mathematics by tracing touchable mathematical curves, playing haptic computer games, and gaining better access to graphical user interfaces like Windows. This paper presents two pilot studies considering haptic Windows access: • FEELit Desktop from Immersion combined with synthetic speech and Braille for general Windows access • A set of virtual haptic tools to be used as aids in searching for scattered virtual objects such as icons on the desktop. A prototype of the FEELit Mouse was used to implement test programs and to carry out a case study with two blind users. The concepts were considered to be “useworthy” [1] in the future, but the systems could not be used as tested without