The Design and Evaluation of a Vibrotactile Progress Bar

We present an investigation into the use of Tactons to present progress information. Progress bars are common but must compete for screen space and visual attention with other visual tasks. We created a tactile progress indicator, encoding progress into a series of vibrotactile pulses. An experiment comparing the tactile progress indicator to a standard visual one showed a significant improvement in performance and an overall preference for the tactile display.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: HAPTICS
• Authors: Stephen A. Brewster, Alison King
• Keywords: HAPTICS 2005, Progress Bars, Progress Information, Tactile Progress Indicator, Virtual Reality