In this paper, we compare eyes-free input gestures to gestures produced in the presence or the absence of a visual feedback for a single-handed mobile device interaction. We consider two gesture sets ((i) freeform gestures (operands, rationally invariant and mnemonic gestures) and (ii) mark-based gestures (on-axis rectilinear segments)) and two gesture beginnings (free: gesture can start from anywhere on the screen and bezel: gesture should start from one of the edge). Our findings indicate that gestures made in an eyes-free interaction were geometrically different from gestures generated in the presence or absence of visual feedback; they generated more directional movements around the y axis and had a lower recognition rate, which in itself was quite good (95.53%). Our findings also indicate that bezel gestures generated more phone movement and were less appreciated than those initialized freely. Freeform gestures were also preferred over mark ones. Based on those results, we propose five guidelines for eyes-free stroke gesture design, ergonomics, and recognizer development.

Touch knobs usually require visual attention when performing a targeting task. This can draw the user’s visual focus to the device, which is not desirable if the visual attention is needed elsewhere. In this work, we investigated the use of haptic feedback for touch knobs when performing another primary task that saturates the attention. In an experiment, we compare three potential tactile feedback designs to a no-feedback variant for a circular targeting task, while performing an attention saturating primary task. Our findings indicate that two investigated designs, namely, gradual+hapticObject and adaptive+hapticObject, providing the user with both haptic feedback on the objects and continuous haptic feedback through the trajectory, can serve as a reliable and effective mechanism for increasing the speed and reducing the mental demand for the secondary task while reducing visual distraction for the primary task.

Alongside vision and sound, hardware systems can be readily designed to support various forms of tactile feedback; however, while a significant body of work has explored enriching visual and auditory communication with interactive systems, tactile information has not received the same level of attention. In this work, we explore increasing the expressivity of tactile feedback by allowing the user to dynamically select between several channels of tactile feedback using variations in finger speed. In a controlled experiment, we show that a user can learn the dynamics of eyes-free tactile channel selection among different channels, and can reliable discriminate between different tactile patterns during multi-channel selection with an accuracy up to 90% when using two finger speed levels. We discuss the implications of this work for richer, more interactive tactile interfaces.

Previous research demonstrated the ability for users to accurately recognize tactile textures on mobile surface. However, the experiments were only run in a lab setting and the ability for users to recognize tactile texture in a real-world environment remains unclear. In this paper, we investigate the effects of physical challenging activities on tactile textures recognition. We consider five conditions: (1) seated on an office, (2) standing in an office, (3) seated in the tramway, (4) standing in the tramway and (5) walking in the street. Our findings indicate that when walking, performances deteriorated compared to the remainder conditions. However, despite this deterioration, the recognition rate stay higher than 82% suggesting that tactile texture could be effectively recognized and used by users in different physical challenges activities including walking.