2021 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 239-250
Various tactile displays have been developed to present tactile graphics. Among them, electrostatic tactile displays are promising because of their low cost and flexibility. This study investigates the effectiveness of reading tactile graphics with multiple fingers on an electrostatic tactile display. For this purpose, we implemented an electrostatic tactile display using silver nanoparticle ink to allow multi-finger reading. Then, we conducted an experiment to compare one-finger and multi-finger reading with the implemented tactile display. The results showed that, in the multi-finger condition, the recognition rates were higher, and reading times were shorter, which indicates the effectiveness of multi-finger reading on the electrostatic tactile display. These results differ from other tactile displays, and is considered to be related to the size of the tactile graphics and factors specific to electrostatic tactile display. In addition, we observed the strategies for capturing a figure in each condition and examined the use of these strategies. By comparing these strategies with other related works, we consider that these strategies can be used as a reference for design guidelines regarding the presentation of tactile graphics with electrostatic tactile display.
