Comments on: Touch that Touches Back: Haptic Feedback Could Make Touch Interfaces Better

By: keith

keith — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 04:52:26 +0000

“Even Apple’s somewhat flawed Mighty Mouse provides feedback by placing a small speaker under its roller ball, which, whether it’s useful or not, tickles your fingertip so you get the sense of scrolling.”

I’m not so sure this is true. I think it may be a psycho-acoustic trick.. like the iPod clicking. Try putting on some decent headphones and then rolling the ball when the mouse is on and off. I tried it, and can’t ‘feel’ a difference.. I can’t feel anything, can you?

This is an important direction to take though.. and ‘ps’, that’s a pretty cool story. Can you describe the feeling of the button at all?

Were there many options on the one button face.. or was it one virtual button per physical button?

/keith

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:01:08 +0000

Wow, interesting. And I see there’s a Windows Mobile phone that already uses some kind of very basic tactile feedback, though I think it was more along the lines of rumble-only. Still, lots of potential here. It seems like we need a basic standard on the OS so software developers implement it, as otherwise it’s going to be less useful. (That or else a way to automatically convert the on-screen widgets for feedback.)

By: ps

ps — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 00:48:34 +0000

hello. i happen to work for said giant mobile company. however, no specific comment on that. but, once got to see a full spectrum of switches and such from one of our parts suppliers. they were working on a touch screen feedback method that was super simple - basically a mini hammer that taps the back of the screen when you touch it. this simple method actually made touching the screen feel 100% the same as touching a physical button. NO difference at all. i was amazed.

so yes, a little can go a long way. sadly, though, i’ve not seen this implemented myself - perhaps thumping an LCD isn’t so good for long time use. or, maybe it’s a bit expensive. whatever the case, it was clear to me, you can have your touchscreen and your button-like haptic feedback, too.