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DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TACTONS IN TOUCH SCREEN INTERACTION
Authors: Tobias Stein, Martin Seeger, Bernd-Burkhard Borys and Ludger Schmidt
Number of views: 267
Tactons are structured tactile messages and used to transmit information to users via the tactile sense.
In recent studies, tactons were tested under various conditions and their benefits were demonstrated,
while tactons were mostly applied on a non-interacting part of participants’ body. In future applications,
e. g. in touch screen interaction, the device itself will probably generate the tactile feedback providing it
to the user’s interacting finger. Therefore, common parameters (i. e., frequency, amplitude, rhythm,
roughness, waveform, and duration) in such a setting were examined and tested for discriminability in
order to derive guidelines for tacton design in touch screen interaction. 51 participants took part in the
experiment, which consisted of 98 randomized tasks. In each task, participants were presented two
vibration signals via a touch screen and had to decide, whether signals were identical or different. 87
tasks comprised a comparison between different signals, while only one parameter was altered in a single
comparison, and 11 control pair signals were identical. The overall recognition rate was 0.69 ± 0.15 but
various combinations showed recognition rates above 90%. It became clear that some parameters are
more suitable in tacton design than others. Frequency and roughness achieved the best results, involving
all paired comparisons which were correctly distinguished by each participant. Distinguishable levels of
parameters and design recommendations were derived from the experiment, and considerations about
future tacton design are presented.