SwimMaster: Uninterrupting user interfaces for body-worn swim devices

Type: Semester thesis
Students: Andrea Moroni Stampa
Advisor: Kilian Förster, Marc Bächlin

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate three different non-interrupting user interfaces that give feedback to a swimmer while swimming. Therefore interfaces for audio, visual and haptic feedback has been designed. These three different actuator systems are called SwimActors. The first SwimActor device type has a built-in vibration motor to stimulate the touch sense. The second SwimActor type has an embedded beeper to affect the hear sense and the third SwimActor type works with a pair of bi-color LEDs integrated into the swimm goggles for the see sense (see figure below).
These three systems were used in an experiment to give commands to a swimmer. The recognition rate and the reaction time for each modality was determined. The systems do not restrict the users in their swim movements. For the visual and the haptic interfaces the results are promising as 70%-100% of the triggered events were recognized correctly. The reaction time of the subjects was in the range of 1.25 to 2.25 seconds. With the audio feedback we achieved less than 70% of recognized events and a reaction time about twice as long as for the visual or haptic feedback. The audio feedback is therefore not appropriate
while swimming.