A study performed by researchers from the University of Málaga and Technosite in Spain has concluded that the use of vibrotactile feedback in mobile phones can be highly beneficial for persons with vision disabilities.

The authors developed an application for incoming call identification that communicated the caller id through different vibration patterns, and tested it both with users with visual disabilities and sighted users. Results revealed that visual impaired participants were not only able to learn the association between different vibrations, but also showed a better performance than their sighted counterparts.

Based on these results, the study supports the idea of using haptic icons to create new assistive devices for persons with visual disabilities.

The study entitled “Enhancing mobile phones for people with visual impairments through haptic icons: The effect of learning processes” was published in the Assistive Technology Journal and is available for free downloading for research purposes.

More information about this research project can be found at the ATIS4ALL website.