Expressive haptics for enhanced usability of mobile interfaces in situations of impairments
This work addresses usability challenges for disabled people and situational impairments, aiming to develop non-stigmatising assistive technology that could benefit everyone, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing haptic and interface design concepts.
The paper tackles the problem of enhancing mobile device usability in situations of impairments, such as sunlight interference or visual impairments, by investigating advanced haptics to complement graphical interfaces, with a focus on kinaesthetic force feedback and initial design concepts for co-creation with users.
Designing for situational awareness could lead to better solutions for disabled people, likewise, exploring the needs of disabled people could lead to innovations that can address situational impairments. This in turn can create non-stigmatising assistive technology for disabled people from which eventually everyone could benefit. In this paper, we investigate the potential for advanced haptics to compliment the graphical user interface of mobile devices, thereby enhancing user experiences of all people in some situations (e.g. sunlight interfering with interaction) and visually impaired people. We explore technical solutions to this problem space and demonstrate our justification for a focus on the creation of kinaesthetic force feedback. We propose initial design concepts and studies, with a view to co-create delightful and expressive haptic interactions with potential users motivated by scenarios of situational and permanent impairments.