Application Based Assessment of Frictional Properties for Haptic Data Visualisation

Haptic devices can be used to present visualisations such as graphs and charts to the blind community. Many adopt a visually mediated method of presentation, whereby the haptic graphs are similar in form and structure to their visual counterparts. Exploration through point interaction force-feedback devices has been shown to be possible, but it is often cumbersome and slow. It may be possible to adopt a new method of encoding using more haptically salient properties. In this study, data in bar charts were encoded using friction. This was compared to standard (height-based) haptic bar chart representations using visually-impaired participants. Results showed that that performance using friction encoding was significantly worse than the standard bar charts.