Contextual consistency as an improvement to user experience and system transparency: The case of a vibrotactile relaxation device with implicit triggers

In mobile devices for travellers and tourists, haptic stimulation is mainly employed to provide directions and alerts; but it could also be employed to influence the user’s affective experience. Here we consider providing relaxing stimulation via a symbiotic vibrotactile vest and compare implicit triggers that are or not contextually consistent. We meet participants in the city center and walk them to a Point of Interest. During the walk, the vibrotactile vest provides them with relaxing stimulation either during waits (consistent condition) or while they walk (inconsistent condition). Participants, who are unaware of the trigger rationale, found the contextually consistent stimulation more pleasant, tended to consider it more transparent and useful. The results suggest that contextualized implicit triggers not only improve the user experience, but could also represent an intuitive strategy to increase the transparency of symbiotic systems.