Karon E. MacLean

A role for haptics in mobile interaction: initial design using a handheld tactile display prototype

Mobile interaction can potentially be enhanced with well-designed haptic control and display. However, advances have been limited by a vicious cycle whereby inadequate haptic technology obstructs inception of vitalizing applications. We present the first stages of a systematic design effort to break that cycle, beginning with specific usage scenarios and a new handheld display platform based on lateral skin stretch. Results of a perceptual device characterization inform mappings between device capabilities and specific roles in mobile interaction, and the next step of hardware re-engineering.

Do it yourself haptics: part I

This article is the first of a two-part series intended as an introduction to haptic interfaces. Together they provide a general introduction to haptic interfaces, their construction, and application design. Haptic interfaces comprise hardware and software components aiming at providing computer-controlled, programmable sensations of mechanical nature, i.e., pertaining to the sense of touch. In Part I, we describe methods that have been researched and developed to date to achieve the generation of haptic sensations, the means to construct experimental devices of modest complexity, and the software components needed to drive them. In Part II of this series, we will describe some basic concepts of haptic interaction design together with several interesting applications based on this technology.

Designing with haptic feedback

Haptic feedback is a design element for human-computer interfaces, and this paper discusses when and how it can be used to best effect in interactive applications. It begins with consideration of the unique attributes of the touch sense in physiological and psychological terms, and the nature of information and control that touching provides. It reviews where active touching helps, by setting forth the forms it may take and important parameters that describe it; and evaluates the specific benefits it offers to contemporary interface problems. It ends with a proposal for a simple interaction model that emphasizes holistic design principles, and highlights issues that arise in the process of creating specific haptic interfaces.

Communicating emotion through a haptic link: Design space and methodology

Communication of affect across a distance is not well supported by current technology, despite its importance to interpersonal interaction in modern lifestyles. Touch is a powerful conduit for emotional connectedness, and thus mediating haptic (touch) displays have been proposed to address this deficiency; but suitable evaluative methodology has been elusive. In this paper, we offer a first, structured examination of a design space for haptic support of remote affective communication, by analyzing the space and then comparing haptic models designed to manipulate its key dimensions. In our study, dyads (intimate pairs or strangers) are asked to communicate specified emotions using a purely haptic link that consists of virtual models rendered on simple knobs. These models instantiate both interaction metaphors of varying intimacy, and representations of virtual interpersonal distance. Our integrated objective and subjective observations imply that emotion can indeed be communicated through this medium, and confirm that the factors examined influence emotion communication performance as well as preference, comfort and connectedness. The proposed design space and the study results have implications for future efforts to support affective communication using the haptic modality, and the study approach comprises a first model for systematic evaluation of haptically expressed affect.

Haptic techniques for media control

We introduce a set of techniques for haptically manipulating digital media such as video, audio, voicemail and computer graphics, utilizing virtual mediating dynamic models based on intuitive physical metaphors. For example, a video sequence can be modeled by linking its motion to a heavy spinning virtual wheel: the user browses by grasping a physical force-feedback knob and engaging the virtual wheel through a simulated clutch to spin or brake it, while feeling the passage of individual frames. These systems were implemented on a collection of single axis actuated displays (knobs and sliders), equipped with orthogonal force sensing to enhance their expressive potential. We demonstrate how continuous interaction through a haptically actuated device rather than discrete button and key presses can produce simple yet powerful tools that leverage physical intuition.

The Role of Affective Touch in Human-Robot Interaction: Human Intent and Expectations in Touching the Haptic Creature

Affective touch is a crucial element of early human development, social bonding, and emotional support. Technically and socially difficult to study, it has received little research attention. Our approach employs animal models instantiated by the Haptic Creature, a touch-centric social robot. In this paper, we examine how humans communicate emotional state through touch to the Haptic Creature and their expectations of its reactions. A user study is presented where participants selected and performed gestures they would likely use when conveying nine different emotions to the Haptic Creature. We report a touch dictionary compiled for our research; the gestures participants chose from it; and video analysis of their enactment. Our principal findings regard patterns of gesture use for emotional expression; physical properties of the likely gestures; expectations for the Haptic Creature’s response to mirror the emotion communicated; and analysis of the human’s higher intent in communication. From the latter finding, we present five tentative categories of “intent” that overlap emotion states: protective, comforting, restful, affectionate, and playful. These results can help inform the future design of social robots by illuminating details of one direction in affective touch interactions.

Designing Large Sets of Haptic Icons with Rhythm

Haptic icons (brief tangible stimuli with associated meanings) are a new way to convey information, but are difficult to design in large quantities due to technological and perceptual constraints. Here, we employ rhythmin combination with frequency and amplitude to systematically produce 84 distinguishable tactile stimuli for use as icons. The sets large size is made possible by an analysis of how users perceptually organize tactile rhythm. Through our evaluation, we find that the two primary characteristics by which users distinguish its tactile rhythms are note lengthand unevenness.

Haptic phonemes: basic building blocks of haptic communication

A haptic phoneme represents the smallest unit of a constructed haptic signal to which a meaning can be assigned. These haptic phonemes can be combined serially or in parallel to form haptic words, or haptic icons, which can hold more elaborate meanings for their users. Here, we use phonemes which consist of brief (<2 seconds) haptic stimuli composed of a simple waveform at a constant frequency and amplitude. Building on previous results showing that a set of 12 such haptic stimuli can be perceptually distinguished, here we test learnability and recall of associations for arbitrarily chosen stimulus-meaning pairs. We found that users could consistently recall an arbitrary association between a haptic stimulus and its assigned arbitrary meaning in a 9-phoneme set, during a 45 minute test period following a reinforced learning stage.

Designing haptic icons to support collaborative turn-taking

This paper describes research exploring the use of haptics to support users collaborating remotely in a single-user shared application. Mediation of turn-taking during remote collaboration provides a context to explore haptic affordances for background communication as well as control negotiation in remote collaboration: existing turn-taking protocols are rudimentary, lacking many communication cues available in face-to-face collaboration. We therefore designed a custom turn-taking protocol that allows users to express different levels of urgency in their request for control from a collaborator; state of control and requests are communicated by touch, with the intent of offloading visual attention. To support it, we developed a set of haptic icons, tangible stimuli to which specific meanings have been assigned. Because we required an icon set which could be utilized with specified, varying levels of intrusiveness in real attentionally challenged situations, we used a perceptually guided procedure that consisted of four steps: initial icon set design, perceptual refinement, validation of learnability and effectiveness under workload, and deployment in an application simulation. We found that our haptic icons could be learned to a high degree of accuracy in under 3min and remained identifiable even under significant cognitive workload. In an exploratory observational study comparing haptic, visual, and combined haptic and visual support for our protocol, participants overall preferred the combined multi-modal support, and in particular preferred the haptic support for control changes and the visual support for displaying state. In their control negotiation, users clearly utilized the option of requesting with graded urgency. The three major contributions in this paper are: (1) the introduction and first case study using a systematic process for refining and evaluating haptic icons for background communication in a primarily visual application; (2) the usability observed for a particular set of icons designed with that process; and (3) the introduction of an urgency-based turn-taking protocol and a comparison of haptic, visual and multi-modal support of our implementation of that protocol.

Foundations of Transparency in Tactile Information Design

This paper places contemporary literature on the topic of unimodal, single-site display of information using complex tactile signals in the context of progress towards the achievement of transparent communication - placing minimal load on the users attentional resources. We discuss recent evidence that more is possible with purely haptic display than is commonly believed, as well as procedural developments that support systematic design of transparent tactile information display; and we frame the advances required to realize significant benefits with the technology we have now. Examples used and objectives thus identified focus on establishing effective information representations, and outlining efficient tools and processes for perceptually guiding icon design. Our discussion is inspired by Weisers vision of calm technology based on locatedness and seamless movement between center and periphery, and it is organized along the lines of potential utility, form and learning.