Guided by touch

Abstract

Haptics is a feedback technology that takes advantage of the human sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, and/or motions to a haptic-enabled user device such as a mobile phone. In this paper we describe four haptic feedback-based prototypes for pedestrian navigation. Haptics is used to convey location, orientation, and distance information to users using pedestrian navigation applications. We compare the functionalities of four applications of haptics in such applications. Initial user trials have elicited positive responses from the users who see benefit in being provided with a "heads up" approach to mobile navigation.