Guiding Tourists through Haptic Interaction: Vibration Feedback in the Lund Time Machine

In English This paper describes the vibrationnal feedback that was chosen for the guiding interaction part of the Lund Time Machine application. This tourist guide provides information on points of interests along a trail, and guides the user along it. The interface uses audio and tactile modalities to be accessible in situations where the visual channel is not available. To navigate to the next goal, the user scans around and feels the phone vibrating in the correct direction. The distance coding was embedded in the directional feedback by making the bursts more frequent when getting closer to the goal. The design was first evaluated in a controlled study and then validated as usable and non-obtrusive within an evaluation in the real context of use.