A comparison of audio and tactile displays for non-visual target selection tasks

This paper presents the results of a series of three experiments carried out to evaluate the speed and accuracy of target acquisition tasks using visual, auditory, or tactile feedback modalities. Ten participants conducted a series of 1-D and 2-D pointing tasks using a pen-based input device and either visual, audio or tactile (vibratory) feedback. Fitts´ Law was used to analyze the results. Overall, participants generally performed better with tactile displays than auditory displays, and were able to perform 1-D pointing tasks with auditory and tactile displays nearly as well as with visual displays. However, pointing in 2-D is significantly slower and more error-prone with non-visual displays.