The steering wheel is used with hands and fingers, which are very sensitive to tactile
information. Additionally, in contrast to the body (driver seat) or feet (pedals),
fingers are usually bare, making it easier to provide rich tactile information. To explore
the design space we created a prototype steering wheel with integrated tactile
actuators. An advantage of integrating the signal into the steering wheel is that the
signal itself might intuitively prompt the driver to turn the wheel using a direct physical
mapping [8], nudging and tugging the driver in the correct direction. This approach
has been successfully employed, for example with a shoulder-tapping system
for visually impaired people [11] which was preferred over and engendered better
performance than audio feedback. According to research on stimulus-response compatibility
(see [9]) spatially corresponding mappings yield better performance than
non-corresponding mappings, and matching modes of stimuli and response (e.g. manual
responses to visuo-spatial stimuli). This further motivates investigation of vibrotactile
cues in the steering wheel.