ABSTRACT 

Vibrotactile alerts are widely studied and implemented in today’s user interfaces, especially in environments saturated with visual and auditory information, such as transportation. However, designing vibrotactile alerting systems is challenging due to the research literature being siloed and inconsistent, as well as the lack of available models for predicting user response performance. This dissertation describes steps taken to address these two research gaps through 1) a scoping literature review of unimodal vibrotactile alerts and 2) a study to evaluate the predictive performance of the established noticing-saliency-effort-expectancy-value (N-SEEV) model with a novel tactile module, which involved a human-subjects experiment in a simulated driving environment. Research findings from the review suggest that ground transportation research has significantly influenced the designs of vibrotactile alerts. Future systematic literature reviews with meta-analyses and further research studies are proposed to support identifying universal design principles by first building knowledge in application domains other than transportation. A reporting items standard is also recommended with foundational guidance for the most important alert parameters, including frequency, duration, and intensity, to address the prevalent absence of information needed for replicating reported alert designs. The N-SEEV model showed promise in visual-only conditions; thus, further evaluation in the driving context is recommended. The tactile module, however, was unable to accurately predict noticing time with vibrotactile alerts. Therefore, guidance for future parameters, noticing metrics, and model structures was outlined. Overall, results from this dissertation can be used to guide the design of future vibrotactile alerting systems, as well as the development of human performance models to predict response time and accuracy to those alerts.

BIOGRAPHY

James Parkinson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University. He earned his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University. His research focuses on improving the design of alerting systems in surface transportation and other contexts.