Mobile and handheld devices have become platforms to support remote collaboration. But, their small form-factor may impact the effectiveness of the visual feedback channel often used to help users maintain an awareness of their partner's activities during synchronous collaborative tasks. We investigated how visual and tactile feedback affects collaboration on mobile devices, with emphasis on spatial coordination in a shared workspace. From two user studies, our results highlight different benefits of each feedback channel in collaborative handheld systems. Visual feedback can provide precise spatial information for collaborators, but degrades collaboration when the feedback is occluded, and sometimes can distract the user's attention. Spatial tactile feedback can reduce the overload of information in visual space and gently guides the user's attention to an area of interest. Our results also show that visual and tactile feedback can complement each other, and systems using both feedback channels can support better spatial coordination than systems using only one form of feedback.
['Koji Yatani', 'Darren Gergle', 'Khai N. Truong']
Investigating effects of visual and tactile feedback on spatial coordination in collaborative handheld systems