Evaluation of Continuous Direction Encoding with Tactile Belts

Tactile displays consisting of tactors located around the user’s waist are a proven means for displaying directions in the horizontal plane. These displays use the body location of tactors to express directions. In current implementations the number of directions that can be expressed is limited to the number of tactors. However, the required number of tactors might not be available or their configuration requires too much effort. This paper describes the design and the evaluation of a presentation method that allows displaying direction between tactors by interpolated their intensity. We compare this method with the prevalent one by letting participants determine directions and having them navigate along tactile waypoints in a virtual environment. The interpolated direction presentation significantly improved the accuracy of perceived directions. Discrete direction presentation, however, proved to be better suited for waypoint navigation and was found easier to process.