10-09-2014, 03:08 PM
An Electronic Voting System for Haptic Touchscreen Interface
An Electronic Voting System.pdf (Size: 777.05 KB / Downloads: 16)
Abstract
Various haptic displays are becoming available for
implementing a new kind of human computer interaction (HCI)
method. Among many types and models, touch panel displays
have been used in wide variety of applications and are proven to
be a useful interface infrastructure. In spite of their popularity,
there are some weak points. The most serious drawback is their
hardness to operate especially for the weak users in information
technology such as the elderly and blind users. The tactile
feedback function has a potential ability for enabling the weak to
make full use of the devices. We propose an approach for
effectively designing user-friendly haptic applications especially
targeted at supporting the weak users. We exemplify our
approach through the design and development of an electronic
voting system. The system uses a touch panel haptic display for
helping the weak to operate with straightforward touch
sensations. It allows them to easily confirm, select, and vote their
supporting candidate without any assisters. We also conducted a
preliminary evaluation to verify the effectiveness of the system.
RELATED WORK
Haptic touch screen is becoming a popular interface
technology in mobile information terminals such as PDAs and
cell-phones [4]. The operational interface used in the mobile
terminals is mainly inherited from GUI interface originally
designed for personal computers. Such interface ordinarily is
difficult to use in a small mobile screen. There are some trials
for investigating how tactile feedback improves the terminal
APPLICATIONS SCENARIO
Although the haptic technology is becoming an important
building block for implementing effective and easy-to-use
interface, acquiring the state of principal modality along with
audio-visual interface seems distant. A reason preventing the
popularization of the haptic technology is that practical haptic
applications are not clearly defined. Human touch sensation
(somatic sensation) has a wider dynamic range and fewer
findings in psychology and cognitive science than other
sensations. Most ongoing research projects focus on
implementing new devices, control methodologies, and basic
software toolkits. The promotion of the haptic technology
utilization, however, needs a scenario for defining application
level research issues and their potential applications.
Accordingly, we are conducting our research project with the
application development scenario as shown in Figure 3. The
following prototype systems are planned or currently under
development.
DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEM
Framework Architecture
A characteristic of the haptic technology differentiating
itself from other modalities is the diverseness of the display
devices and their control software. Human tactile sensation has
no particular receptor and is responsible for various senses
across an entire body. Therefore, developing a single device
covering all senses is impossible. Accordingly, so many
research and commercial devices targeted at stimulating a
specific tactile sense have been developed. Because these
devices have their own mechanisms for presenting various
tactile effects, the users need to incorporate the devices into
their application systems by using proprietary control methods.
Although the haptic devices should easily be customizable as
interface devices, effectively using the devices is an extremely
difficult issue for the users with no programming skill.
Outline of Electronic Voting System
Electronic voting systems with touch panel interface are
actively pursued in these days. Computerized balloting system
has some advantages over the traditional paper ballot such as
prevention of wrong description, simplification and
automation of vote counting, and substantial cost reduction. In
contrast, high reliability, security, and usability are important
Prototype of Electronic Voting System
We prototyped the electronic voting system as shown in
Figure7. In the screen, each candidate’s name, confirmation
button, and selection button are regularly arranged in a row. A
ballot operation consists of the three processes that are
confirmation, selection, and vote as described in circled
numbers in Figure
PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENT
The system assigns distinguishable tactile effect with each
candidate for allowing the weak (the elderly and the blind) to
independently discriminate, select, and vote their supporting
candidate. To verify how the system can satisfy this
requirement, we conducted a preliminary experiment for
designing a set of tactile effects easily discriminated by the
voters. Firstly, we investigated whether vibration magnitude
(intensity) can be a factor for the candidate discrimination. We
used the three basic effects (“pulse”, “crisp”, and “smooth”)
predefined for the TouchScreen haptic display and assigned
the same effect with different magnitude to multiple candidates.
Each basic effect has the four levels of its vibration magnitude
from weakest to strongest; therefore, we measured the
discrimination ratio by gradually enlarging the relative
magnitude as single, double, and triple differences of intensity.
Figure 8 shows the result of the measurement. We employed
eight subjects for this experiment. As can be found in the
figure, the “pulse” and “crisp” effects achieved 100%
discrimination ratio with the triple intensity (maximum relative
magnitude). The “smooth” effect, however, could not attain
100% ratio. This result suggests that the vibration magnitude
can be used for constructing a set of easily distinguishable
tactile effects when used with the “pulse” and “crisp” effects.
CONCLUSIONS
We proposed an approach for effectively sharing different
types of haptic devices and designing various haptic
applications. We exemplified our approach through the design
and development of an electronic voting system. The system
uses an easy-to-use touch panel display with embedded tactile
feedback function. It allows the weak in information
technology such as the elderly and blind users to easily
confirm, select, and vote their supporting candidates without
any assistance. We conducted a preliminary experiment for
verifying whether the system can generate tactile effect
vocabulary effective for discriminating multiple candidates
only through touch sensations. Although our project is at an
early stage, the result is promising. Because we are also
working on developing some other practical application
systems and tactile effect design tools [14], we would also like
to conduct more thorough evaluations by using other
applications and tools in the near future