Shoe me the Way: A Shoe-Based Tactile Interface for Eyes-Free Urban Navigation

We present Shoe me the Way, a novel tactile interface for eyes-free pedestrian navigation in urban environments. Our prototypical implementation can be fully integrated into users' own, regular shoes without permanent modifications. Interface use does not distract users from their surroundings. It thereby adds to users' safety and enables them to explore their environments more freely than is possible with prevailing mobile map-based pedestrian navigation systems. We evaluated our prototype using two different navigation modes in a study with 21 participants and report on significant differences in user performance and preferences between the modes. Study results also show that even our prototypical implementation is already stable, functional and has high usability.