Supporting Unskilled People in Manual Tasks through Haptic-Based Guidance

Abstract

This chapter presents a methodology that the authors developed for the evaluation of a novel device based on haptic guidance to support people with disabilities in sketching, hatching, and cutting shapes. The user’s hand movement is assisted by a sort of magnet or spring effect attracting the hand towards an ideal shape. The haptic guidance device has been used as an input system for tracking the sketching movements made by the user according to the visual feedback received from a physical template without haptic assistance. Then the device has been used as an output system that provides force feedback capabilities. The drawn shape can also be physically produced as a piece of polystyrene foam. The evaluation methodology is based on a sequence of tests, aimed at assessing the usability of the device and at meeting the real needs of the unskilled people. In fact, the system has been evaluated by a group of healthy and unskilled people, by comparing the analysis of the tracking results. The authors have used the results of the tests to define guidelines about the device and its applications, switching from the concept of “test the device on unskilled people” to the concept of “testing the device with unskilled people.”