Haptics

Pedestrian Navigation with smartphones is commonplace, but screens and audio feedback can distract users from hazards in their surroundings. Haptic feedback communicates information through the sense of touch, which is used less when walking. Though many researchers have used vibration based feedback in prototype navigation systems for blind and visually persons, we believe that vibration is better suited to providing short alerting signals (as in mobile phones) and can become annoying or distracting in extended tasks (such as guidance). Shape-changing haptic interfaces are a fairly uncommon method of communicating information that makes use of our natural ability to perceive the shape of objects through touch, with little cognitive demand or distraction.