Form Recognition with the Tactile Mouse : The Effect of Hand-Movement-to-Pin Ratio
Details
For the purpose of providing access for blind people to graphical information, a device called "tactile mouse" has been developed. It consists of an ordinary computer mouse with a small tactile display unit on its top. The combinatory effect of the active movement of the hand and the tactile feedback to the fingers makes users feel as if they were exploring tangible drawings. To evaluate its usability, two experiments of line following and form recognition were conducted. It was found that, when the parameter called hand-movement-to-pin ratio was very low, the chance of deviation from the virtual forms increased, and when it was too high, on the other hand, recognition task became difficult and the error rate rose. These factors led to longer performance time and lower ratings. These results gave a quantitative indicator of tha ratio for the efficient use of the tactile mouse.
