Expectations for user experience in haptic communication with mobile devices

ABSTRACT

The haptic modality -- the sense of touch -- is utilized very limitedly in current human-computer interaction. Especially in mobile communication, the haptic modality could provide a means for richer multimodal and emotional communication between users over distance. Haptic user interface prototypes have been developed but their user experience has not been studied extensively. We conducted seven focus group sessions to study users' expectations for user experience of haptic interaction, specifically focusing on mobile communication. The paper presents the user experience factors that were regarded by potential users as salient in haptic interaction: subjective quality of the haptic stimuli, privacy, intimacy and spontaneity. Also the possibilities, restrictions and suitability of the haptic mobile communication are discussed. Most appropriate use cases for haptic communication were found to be conveying emotions and binary information. As the main conclusion, we present design guidelines for haptic mobile communication that were drawn up based on the findings.

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Index Terms

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

    • Interaction devices

      • Haptic devices