Haptic design
Designs responses perceived through touch, such as vibrations, taps or resistance, so a device can inform and confirm without you having to look at the screen.
What problem it addresses
The eyes are often busy, or the screen is small or out of sight. Touch is a free channel to alert, confirm or guide.
Principles
One meaning per pattern
Each vibration is always tied to the same thing, so it is learned as cause and effect.
Accompany, don’t replace
What you feel matches what you see and hear in timing and intensity.
Little and brief
A short tap now and then informs; constant vibration is tiring and loses meaning.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Use vibration to confirm an action, mark a limit or a step, or alert discreetly when you can’t look.
Avoid
Vibrating on every tap, or using the same pattern for a success and an error.
Don’t fall for it
Let each person lower or turn off vibrations, and make sure everything still works without them.
Connections
Builds on
Authors and works
- 2004
Stephen Brewster and Lorna Brown
Proposed “tactons,” structured tactile messages that combine rhythm, intensity, duration and body location, like icons for touch.
- 2008
Karon MacLean
Organized haptic design for everyday interfaces and separated skin touch from the sense of force and movement. She warned that touch only relieves the eyes if it lowers total effort.
Sources
Original sources
- MacLean, K. E. (2008). Haptic interaction design for everyday interfaces. Reviews of Human Factors and Ergonomics, 4(1), 149–194. View source: MacLean, K. E. (2008)
- Brewster, S. A., & Brown, L. M. (2004). Tactons: Structured tactile messages for non-visual information display. In Proceedings of the 5th Australasian User Interface Conference (AUIC 2004), CRPIT 28 (pp. 15–23). Australian Computer Society. View source: Brewster, S. A., & Brown, L. M. (2004)
- Apple (2024). Playing haptics. In Human Interface Guidelines. Apple Developer. View source: Apple (2024)
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