TOP: Tactile opinion poll system for silent feedback

Voting is an integral part of modern day societies that yearn for democracy and transparency. For voting to be acceptable and wanted, it needs to be secretive, anonymus, fast, and reliable. The main aim of this paper is to propose the Tactile Opinion Poll (TOP) system for silent feedback that enables users to cast their vote and opinion in a secure and private way that is both intuitive and easy. The TOP system captures user feedback using haptic modality in real-time by squeezing a smart tangible ball (called the squeezometer) that securely communicates the user feedback to a central software via Wi-Fi. The squeezometer display vibrotactile clues to confirm user selection via a vibrotactile motor embedded in the squeezometer device. A preliminary evaluation is conducted to verify the effectiveness of the system and investigate an optimal voting protocol that the system may use.