You may know haptic (the sense of touch) technology from playing home video games (of course you play!)  Since the advent of PlayStation DualShock controllers, we and millions of kids have enjoyed feeling the virtual road as we drive over bumps in car games because the controllers vibrate like we’re hitting those bumps.  This is called, in technology circles, haptics.  You may also be familiar with the BMW automobile user interface and the Volkswagen user interface, which use haptics to guide you through menus and provide visual and sensory cues to help you know when you have landed on a particular item in your car’s menu.

One recent device, heavily promoting its haptic interface, is this MP3 player:

Haptic technology emerged from the aerospace industry, a breeding ground for many advanced technologies.  When fly-by-wire was developed for airplanes, the pilots no longer had direct feedback from the controls to know when their aircraft might be about to stall.  Off-center weights on motors were added to the control set so that when fly-by-wire reaches a critical angle, these off-center weights afford feedback by vibrating the control stick, similar to the experience that direct controls afforded. Haptic interfaces in the medical field are being used to increase clinical proficiency and decrease medical errors and costs and to provide interactive medical image analysis.  Haptic feedback provides additional information that makes digital environments and interfaces more real, and therefore safer as a result of engaging more of our faculties.

Many recent developments using technology to add haptics include manipulating objects in 3D environments and feeling the boundaries of a virtual environment.  This extends the purposes from haptic feedback in videogames and the added level of realism to the use of sensory feedback in other computer applications and in personal digital assistants (PDA), such as iPhones.  The iPhone console already uses a vibration generator to signal the arrival of a phone call, text message, or anything else the user chooses. That same off-center motor can be used to simulate a number of different tactile responses, despite the surface of the iPhone being completely smooth.  It’s actually possible, knowing where a person’s finger is relative to a button, to provide the sensation of activating a physical button when in fact the surface is flat.

Other areas of exploration might include sensing when a photo is out of focus, when a direction is deviating from the planned route, or when a compass point has shifted, all by combining many of the existing elements within the iPhone.  Although the technology is now just experimental, the popularity of the iPhone and the fact that it has a robust and heavily supported programmed interface makes it easy for interface designers to consider not just the visual cinematic and audio aspects of the interface, but also the sensory aspects of the interface.  Not all of this tactile feedback is understood, yet, but as evidenced by the research, these sensory feedback controls will soon be available out-of-the-box to programmers and designers.

This new range of interface possibilities raises the desirability of applications, and their ability to differentiate themselves by providing a truly integrated or lifelike experience.  Haptics integrates a more complete use of our sense of touch with the senses of seeing and hearing.  We can expect even wider ranges of delightful experience through our expanding multi-sensory experience of interfacing with devices and the rich environments these create as they connect through location-based data, visual input from cameras, and data available over the network.  When the device knows where you are, and can present visual, aural, and tactile feedback, the result is a rich interaction with the interface. The possibilities are broad for exploring an environment that is connected through three of our five senses.

Written with Mary-Anna Rae