Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The use of thumbing is an important reminder that users will often use devices
in ways other than those intended by the designers. Probably the most widespread
example of this is the sending of SMS messages, a task that is performed by most
people who own a mobile phone. SMS messages were originally included as a
debugging feature to help telephone engineers; it is one of the things that HCI
designers missed.
We noted earlier that people's bodies change as they get older. Deterioration in
eyesight, for example, can make it harder to read small buttons. This is one of the
reasons why some people prefer phones that have bigger buttons, like the one
shown in Fig.
3.12
. Although the larger buttons mean that there is less space to
include other features, it should make the existing features easier to access and use.
It should also be noted that there is a delicate balance to be struck here between
making the buttons easier to see on the one hand, and stigmatizing the user as
someone who is old or has poor eyesight on the other.
3.3.5 Video Games and Virtual Reality Systems
In video games that use a vibrating controller, the physical motion of the controller
(which vibrates as well as buzzing) is used as a primary source of (haptic) feed-
back. In car driving games, for example, the vibration may indicate that the car has
left the road surface (see also Fogtmann et al.
2008
and Bau and Poupyrev
2012
for two examples of their use). Video games are becoming increasingly sophis-
ticated in this area.
Haptic feedback in virtual reality systems provides a useful way to help the user
feel immersed in the virtual environment. In some cases it is easier to commu-
nicate particular types of information in virtual environments, such as the forces
that exist between objects and those that are needed to manipulate objects. Force
has also been used, for example, in virtual surgery to represent different parts of
the body, and to illustrate the forces involved in manipulating atoms within a
molecule when designing drugs (e.g., Zonta et al.
2009
).
One way of providing haptic interaction is through a force feedback glove,
which is instrumented and has force feedback pads in the fingers. The user wears
the glove, and as they move their hand and fingers in the glove, the movements are
applied to modify the relevant objects in the interface. If an object in the interface
is not movable, or requires a significant force to move it, this is fed back to the user
by providing a greater force on feedback pads and hence onto the user's fingers.
Data gloves are often perceived as being quite cumbersome, however, which is an
issue that is now starting to be addressed through the development of devices that
support gesture-based interaction such as Microsoft's Digits
3
which utilizes a
wrist-worn gloveless sensor.
3
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