Improving the accessibility of NFC/RFID-based mobile interaction through learnability and guidance

ABSTRACT

NFC and RFID technologies have found their way into current mobile phones and research has presented a variety of applications using NFC/RFID tags for interaction between physical objects and mobile devices. Since this type of interaction is widely novel for most users, there is a considerable initial inhibition threshold for them. In order to get novice users started with this physical interaction and its applications, we have designed different ways to increase the learnability and guidance of such applications. Their effectiveness was evaluated in a qualitative and quantitative user study with 40 participants, who interacted with NFC-equipped posters in different ways. We report on the types of usage errors observed and show that future designs of NFC/RFID-based mobile applications should consider using a dedicated start-tag for interaction.

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Index Terms

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

    • HCI design and evaluation methods

    • Interaction devices

      • Touch screens

    • Interaction paradigms