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We review the current technology underlying surface haptics that converts passive touch surfaces to active ones (machine haptics), our perception of tactile stimuli displayed through active touch surfaces (human haptics), their potential applications (human-machine interaction), and finally the challenges ahead of us in making them available through commercial systems. This review primarily covers the tactile interactions of human fingers or hands with surface-haptics displays by focusing on the three most popular actuation methods: vibrotactile, electrostatic, and ultrasonic., 21 pages, 177 references, review paper

Electrovibration has been used extensively with touchscreens and other rigid objects. We propose extending electrovibration to wearables such as wristbands, jewelry and clothing, and present an exploration of the resulting design space and preliminary experimentation with haptic prototypes made of flexible materials and conductive textiles.

We describe the graduate-level CanHap 501 (wiki.canhaptics.ca) course, an introduction to the inception, creation and evaluation of haptic and multimodal human-computer interfaces. The course covers perceptual and attentional foundations, and emphasizes control and/or display of computed sensations and environments through haptic devices to users’ sense of touch for the purpose of haptic communication—e.g., signalling, social and affective touch, and sharing of control between humans and smart systems.

ReFlex is a flexible smartphone with bend input and active haptic feedback. ReFlex's features allow the introduction of sensations such as friction or resistance. We report results from an experiment using ReFlex in a targeting task, as well as initial users' reactions to the prototype. We explore both absolute and relative tactile haptic feedback, paired with two types of bend input mappings: position-control and rate-control. We observed that position-controlled cursors paired well with relative bend feedback, while rate-controlled cursors paired well with absolute bend feedback to indicate targets. We also explored an eyes-free condition. Results suggest that while eyes-free, haptic feedback conditions were more error-prone than visual-only conditions, the size of the error was relatively small, and users were able to complete the task in all cases. We present two application scenarios that take advantage of the unique input and output modalities of ReFlex and discuss its potential for within document navigation.

This paper describes the design, construction, and initial evaluation of a handheld information device that supports combined tactile and graphical interaction. The design comprises a liquid crystal graphic display co-located with a miniature, low-power, distributed tactile transducer. This transducer can create electronically-controlled lateral skin deformation patterns which give the sensation of sliding over small shapes. It is integrated within a slider mechanism to control scrolling. It also functions as a detent when pushing on it. Tactile feedback and the combination of visual and tactile feedback in a mobile context enable the development of new functions, such as multimodal navigation within large graphic spaces

Touch interactions have refreshed some of the 'glowing enthusiasm' of thirty years ago for direct manipulation interfaces. However, today's touch technologies, whose interactions are supported by graphics, sounds or crude clicks, have a tactile sameness and gaps in usability. We use a Large Area Tactile Pattern Display (LATPaD) to examine design possibilities and outcomes when touch interactions are enhanced with variable surface friction. In a series of four studies, we first confirm that variable friction gives significant performance advantages in low-level targeting activities. We then explore the design space of variable friction interface controls and assess user reactions. Most importantly, we demonstrate that variable friction can have a positive impact on the enjoyment, engagement and sense of realism experienced by users of touch interfaces.

Rich tactile interaction with control surfaces has been compromised in the transition to touch interfaces. This paper discusses new haptic effects that restore physicality to touch interaction by dynamically altering a touchscreen's frictional properties.

Raised line patterns are used extensively in the design of tactile graphics for persons with visual impairments. A tactile stroke pattern was therefore developed to enable the rendering of vector graphics by lateral skin deformation. The stroke pattern defines a transversal profile and a longitudinal texture which provide tactile feedback while respectively crossing over the stroke and tracing its length. The stroke pattern is demonstrated with the rendering of lines, circles and polygons, and is extensible to other vector graphics primitives such as curves. The parametric nature of the stroke allows the representation of distinctive line types and the online adjustment of line thickness and other parameters according to user preferences and capabilities. The stroke pattern was informally evaluated with four visually impaired volunteers.

This paper presents preliminary work towards the development and evaluation of a practical refreshable tactile graphics system for the display of tactile maps, diagrams and graphs for people with visual impairments. Refreshable tactile graphics were dynamically produced by laterally deforming the skin of a finger using the STReSS2 tactile display. Tactile features were displayed over an 11x6 cm virtual surface by controlling the tactile sensations produced by the fingerpad-sized tactile display as it was moved on a planar carrier. Three tactile rendering methods were used to respectively produce virtual gratings, dots and vibrating patterns. These tactile features were used alone or in combination to display shapes and textures. The ability of the system to produce tactile graphics elements was evaluated in five experiments, each conducted with 10 sighted subjects. The first four evaluated the perception of simple shapes, grating orientations, and grating spatial frequencies. The fifth experiment combined these elements and showed that tactile icons composed of both vibrating contours and grated textures can be identified. The fifth experiment was repeated with 6 visually impaired subjects with results suggesting that similar performance should be expected from that user group.