Sweep-Shake: finding digital resources in physical environments

ABSTRACT

In this article we describe the Sweep-Shake system, a novel, low interaction cost approach to supporting the spontaneous discovery of geo-located information. By sweeping a mobile device around their environment, users browse for interesting information related to points of interest. We built a mobile haptic prototype which encourages the user to explore their surroundings to search for location information, helping them discover this by providing directional vibrotactile feedback. Once potential targets are selected, the interaction is extended to offer an hierarchy of information levels with a simple method for filtering and selecting desired types of data for each geo-tagged location. We describe and motivate our approach and present a short field trial to situate our design in a real environment, followed by a more detailed user study that compares it against an equivalent visual-based system.

REFERENCES

• 1: T. Ahmaniemi, V. Lantz, and J. Marila. Dynamic audiotactile feedback in gesture interaction. In MobileHCI '08: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Human computer interaction with mobile devices and services, pages 339--342, New York, NY, USA, 2008. ACM.
• 2: S. A. Brewster, V. Räty, and A. Kortekangas. Earcons as a method of providing navigational cues in a menu hierarchy. In HCI '96: Proceedings of HCI on People and Computers XI, pages 169--183, London, UK, 1996. Springer-Verlag.
• 3: A. Chang and C. O'Sullivan. Audio-haptic feedback in mobile phones. In CHI '05: CHI '05 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, pages 1264--1267, New York, NY, USA, 2005. ACM.
• 4: M. Egenhofer. Spatial information appliances: A next generation of geographic information systems. First Brazilian Workshop on GeoInformatics, October 1999.
• 5: P. Fröhlich, R. Simon, L. Baillie, and H. Anegg. Comparing conceptual designs for mobile access to geo-spatial information. In MobileHCI '06: Proceedings of the 8th conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services, pages 109--112, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM.
• 6: S. G. Hart and L. E. Staveland. Development of nasa-tlx (task load index): Results of empirical and theoretical research. In Human mental workload, pages 139--183, 1988.
• 7: S. Holland, D. R. Morse, and H. Gedenryd. AudioGPS: Spatial audio navigation with a minimal attention interface. Personal Ubiquitous Computing, 6(4):253--259, 2002.
• 8: M. Jones and S. Jones. The music is the message. interactions, 13(4):24--27, 2006.
• 9: M. Jones, S. Jones, G. Bradley, N. Warren, D. Bainbridge, and G. Holmes. ONTRACK: Dynamically adapting music playback to support navigation. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 12(7):513--525, October 2008.
• 10: R. W. Lindeman, J. L. Sibert, E. Mendez-Mendez, S. Patil, and D. Phifer. Effectiveness of directional vibrotactile cuing on a building-clearing task. In CHI '05: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 271--280, New York, NY, USA, 2005. ACM.
• 11: J. Luk, J. Pasquero, S. Little, K. MacLean, V. Levesque, and V. Hayward. A role for haptics in mobile interaction: initial design using a handheld tactile display prototype. In CHI '06: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, pages 171--180, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM.
• 12: S. Robinson, P. Eslambolchilar, and M. Jones. Point-to-geoblog: gestures and sensors to support user generated content creation. In MobileHCI '08: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Human computer interaction with mobile devices and services, pages 197--206, New York, NY, USA, 2008. ACM.
• 13: E. Rukzio, K. Leichtenstern, V. Callaghan, P. Holleis, A. Schmidt, and J. Chin. An experimental comparison of physical mobile interaction techniques: Touching, pointing and scanning. In UbiComp '06: Ubiquitous Computing, volume Volume 4206/2006, pages 87--104. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2006.
• 14: B.-S. Shin and C.-S. Lim. Obstacle detection and avoidance system for visually impaired people. In Haptic and Audio Interaction Design, volume 4813/2007 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 78--85. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 2007.
• 15: R. Simon, H. Kunczier, and H. Anegg. Towards orientation-aware location based mobile services. In Location Based Services and TeleCartography, pages 279--290. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2007.
• 16: S. Strachan and R. Murray-Smith. Bearing-based selection in mobile spatial interaction. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 13(4), 2009.
• 17: S. Strachan, J. Williamson, and R. Murray-Smith. Show me the way to monte carlo: density-based trajectory navigation. In CHI '07: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 1245--1248, New York, NY, USA, 2007. ACM.
• 18: J. B. F. Van Erp, H. A. H. C. Van Veen, C. Jansen, and T. Dobbins. Waypoint navigation with a vibrotactile waist belt. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, 2(2):106--117, 2005.
• 19: J. Williamson, R. Murray-Smith, and S. Hughes. Shoogle: excitatory multimodal interaction on mobile devices. In CHI '07: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 121--124, New York, NY, USA, 2007. ACM.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
gestures, haptics, location-aware, mobile computing