Marilyn Rose McGee

Putting the feel in ’look and feel‘

Haptic devices are now commercially available and thus touch has become a potentially realistic solution to a variety of interaction design challenges. We report on an investigation of the use of touch as a way of reducing visual overload in the conventional desktop. In a two-phase study, we investigated the use of the PHANToM haptic device as a means of interacting with a conventional graphical user interface. The first experiment compared the effects of four different haptic augmentations on usability in a simple targeting task. The second experiment involved a more ecologically-oriented searching and scrolling task. Results indicated that the haptic effects did not improve users performance in terms of task completion time. However, the number of errors made was significantly reduced. Subjective workload measures showed that participants perceived many aspects of workload as significantly less with haptics. The results are described and the implications for the use of haptics in user interface design are discussed.

Haptic perception of virtual roughness

The texture of a virtual surface can both increase the sense of realism of an object as well as convey information about object identity, type, location, function, and so on. It is crucial therefore that interface designers know the range of textural information available through the haptic modality in virtual environments. The current study involves participants making roughness judgments on pairs of haptic textures experienced through a force-feedback device. The effect of texture frequency on roughness perception is analysed. The potential range and resolution of textural information available through force-feedback interaction are discussed.

A handheld chemotherapy symptom management system: results from a preliminary outpatient field trial

A symptom management system was developed and implemented on personal digital assistants (PDAs) for use by cancer outpatients in their daily management of chemotherapy symptoms. The system allowed patients to record their symptoms at home and send these data to their cancer centre. Patients could view personalized self-care advice and more general medical information. In addition, cancer care nurses were alerted about significantly high symptom scores and could contact the patient by phone. The system was distributed to a group of patients during two of their chemotherapy cycles. Patient interaction with the system was logged, and both patients and cancer nurses were surveyed via questionnaires and interviews in order to assess expectations of and attitudes towards the technology. Comparison was made of the quantitative and qualitative results so obtained. Implications for computer-assisted symptom management and the method of evaluation of such systems are considered.