How Haptics changed the game of Usability
Alphonse Chapanis proposed an answer that turned into a world standard in avionics after wartime, a shape coding that empowered to effortlessly recognize and distinguish controls work without seeing them, utilizing just touch after his perceptions amid world war II in which a few aircraft planes have endured mishaps because of trouble in illustration the arrival gear while landing. His perceptions remembered to an end that mishaps happened because of the arrangement of indistinguishable controls for folds and landing gear one next to the other. Amid high subjective and requesting circumstance, even very prepared pilots got befuddled and committed errors.
This handy solution after the war, comprised of sticking portions of elastic on the landing gear switch, giving it a scored structure, and forming a wedge outline on the other control.
So, what exactly is Haptics ?
The haptic methodology is the feeling of touch which is used very limited space in current human-PC collaboration. Particularly in versatile correspondence, the haptic modality could give way to more extravagant multimodal and enthusiastic correspondence between clients over distance. Haptic UI models have been produced however their user experience has not been concentrated widely. A Haptic interface is a UI that is dependent on contact, utilizing the developments of the user as information and the feeling of touch as yield. Examples include force feedback joysticks and Braille screen readers.
Different Types of Haptic feedback Systems
Interfaces using haptic controls that have attributes such as shape, texture, vibration, and resistance to movement etc.
Passive systems
Passive haptic systems are those frameworks that give their input through haptic properties of mechanical frameworks, physical items, and friction. For instance, taking Interaction with a console or mouse can be an able and simple thing to get it. Great materiality of controls has not just discovered a superior computerized option now and again but also provide a sense of haptic feedback (Ex: cell phone volume controls, mute sliders)
Active systems
The system that produces its own feedback through any software or actuators which essentially includes Vibration. Vibration has advanced from a “Binary” use to increasingly modern usage.
For instance, we can utilize vibration designs, playing with recurrence and adequacy to encode messages a long ways past a yes/no notice. The quantity of examples (likewise called haptic symbols, tactons or hapticons) we can separate is striking. The utilization of vibration as a way to reproduce mechanical feedback has turned out to be prevalent.
Role of haptics in Usability
Capacitive touch interfaces are replacing mechanical switches, knobs, and dials in consumer, automotive, industrial and medical applications. Capacitive touch sensors have gained popularity due to their aesthetic value, increased reliability, and reduced manufacturing/tooling cost. User interfaces with capacitive touch sensing have also been shown to improve the user experience as well as increase a product’s lifespan because there are no mechanical components to fail.
Transitioning from mechanical buttons, knobs, and dials to a capacitive touch interface, however, poses a challenge to designers because there is no tactile feedback present with capacitive touch sensors as exists with mechanical buttons and switches. For example, consider the experience of typing on a keyboard. When a key is pressed and released, it bounces back due to spring action. A person can feel the force of the key bouncing back with his or her finger and thereby confirm the key press. With a capacitive touch interface, there is no inherent mechanical feedback, and users do not have the same experience as that of mechanical keys. The absence of tactile feedback poses a challenge to designers in that their primary goal is to improve the user experience. Through haptics technology, developers can provide tactile feedback, improve the user experience, and add value to products
How to Involve Haptics in User Experience
Haptics technology is a tactile feedback technology that uses a person’s sense of touch to provide feedback by applying forces, vibrations, or motion to the user. A simple example of haptics technology is the vibration alert used in mobile phones and tablets. When the mobile phone is in vibrate mode, the device is vibrated using an actuator to alert the user of an incoming call or message even when the user is not looking at the screen.
Clearly, haptic feedback is useful for many types of mobile applications. Here are some of its possible applications:
- An affirmative response to ‘Pull to Refresh’
- Sliders and Switches
- Option Scrolling (such as selecting your state from a list)a
- Keyboard Clicking
- Response to long presses (accessing extra options on a Pinterest card)
- Pinch to Zoom (at minimum and maximum)
- During gameplay (attacks, gaining lives, passing levels)
Differentiating Haptic feedback with vibrations
This is often an area of confusion, especially because there are no strict guidelines as to what separates the two. In truth, they are both very similar. The difference between haptics and vibration alerts can be found by the complexity of the vibration pattern.
Although they both use vibrations to communicate with the user, the key difference is that haptic feedback devices often use a variety of advanced waveforms to convey information to the user. Vibration alerting products are less complicated and are generally designed to produce a strong enough vibration to alert the user of an event.
Imagine a reversing car’s parking sensor whereupon coming within 50 cm of an object the steering wheel begins to vibrate. This is an example of vibration alerting as it notifies the user of an event with a simple vibration pattern. In reality, the driver would prefer to know how far they are from the object. With haptic feedback, we can transmit this information to the driver by varying the vibration strength or frequency over a range of distances. This also removes the high pitched beeping found on current sensors and ensures the driver can use the parking sensor if they are in a loud environment or hard of hearing.
Updates in the world of Haptics
Apple the tech giant first introduced Multi-touch that brought about a revolutionary change in the way we navigate apps using Tap, Swipe, and Pinch on iOS devices. No wonder the touch technology instantly won over iPhone and iPad users.
Then came Force Touch a pressure-sensitive technology which distinguishes between different levels of force applied to the device. Using Force Touch technology, users are able to carry out certain tasks quickly. As for instance, you can force click reminders and dates to expand them and be able to perform more actions.
Taking the Force Touch technology to an altogether new level, Apple launched 3D Touch on its new devices. Being more sensitive than Force Touch, 3D Touch has been developed to work using capacitive sensors integrated into the display. In terms of functionality, 3D Touch is really smart. It allows you to carry out certain tasks instantly through quick actions.
You don’t need to launch an app to carry out commonly-used actions. As for instance, if you want to take a selfie, you don’t need to launch the Camera app. A simply light press on the Camera app, you get the option to Take Selfie right on your Homescreen.
Force Touch is smart enough to detect the pressure applied on the screen. It can detect not just multiple touches on the screen but can also calculate the difference in pressure on various points of the screen. However, while reacting to your touch, Force Touch is not as fast as 3D Touch. The lightning fast response of the 3D Touch is because of the fusion of capacitive sensors and strain gauges. This fusion is perfected by the “Taptic Engine”.
Apple now came up with haptic touch feature that lets you get some of the same functionality as 3D Touch without having the specialized hardware.
Alert Shirt apparently first of its kind wearable t-shirt that let you feel like you are part of the soccer game. The wearer of this t-shirt would feel all things like players colliding, to a spiking heart rate, when the clock’s running down and exhausted lungs after a long sprint.
This shirt is developed using haptics to enable the viewer to feel the stadium atmosphere.
For complete information please read Click Here
For many sight-impaired individuals, the sense they rely on most is one that tends to be ignored by a lot of tech-based solutions: touch. It’s a subtle way to convey a lot of information, and the design company WearWorks is looking to take advantage of this with its new haptic wristband, guiding people around via simple vibrational cues. Click Here for Complete Info.
Tesla suit motion capture system uses sensors to transfer the precise position of the body into virtual environments. The full-body haptic feedback and motion capture in a thermo-controlled suit takes the wearer even deeper into a virtual world. Read More
Thanks for Reading !!!
What are your thoughts about it ?
Authors : Jagadeesh Kampara and Sourabh Purwar
Email: sourabh.purwar@gmail.com
References :
http://kentlyons.net/projects.html
https://uxdesign.cc/haptics-touch-sense-still-makes-sense-2d0919c31548
