Haptic feedback is more than just a nice to have feature. It can provide several benefits and solve design and usability problems.

Performance Gains and Higher User Satisfaction

Published research (see Immersion’s white paper, The Value of Haptics, pdf, 422 k) shows that haptic feedback in human-computer interactions (HCI) supplies an essential component. It causes a quantifiable improvement on efficiency, error rate, and user satisfaction.

Findings show that a significant quantity of information can be conveyed through touch, not just simple notifications. In fact, the touch channel may be particularly well-suited for providing particular types of information: private, immediate, dynamic, and confirming.

Touch has been found to provide a highly effective secondary channel that supports peripheral or subconscious communications, leaving the other senses better able to focus on primary tasks. And several studies show that users strongly prefer haptic feedback in HCI — because it helps improve their performance and makes them feel more in control.

Design and Usability Solutions

Because haptics technology is programmable, it offers a key differentiator over purely electro-mechanical controls. A programmable haptic device, a rotary encoder, for example, can supply tactile response appropriate to the context of operation for many applications. With this flexibility, multiple mechanical controls can be consolidated into one versatile programmable haptic control, which can save space, improve ergonomics, and make operation more intuitive. Conversely, one programmable haptic control can be implemented as many different types of controls with context-appropriate touch feedback, which can help simplify inventory and streamline manufacturing production. Haptics programmability also supports the potential for personalized settings and in-field upgradeability.

A haptic control, because it restores the familiar tactile qualities of mechanical switches and buttons, can also help make for an easier conversion from mechanical to digital devices. For example, a touchscreen with haptic feedback helps solve these potential usability problems:

• In direct sunlight, you can’t easily see graphical changes, so you don’t know if the system registered your selection. But a touchscreen that “touches back” with haptics technology provides unmistakable confirmation.
  
• During the time you’re touching the screen, the target is often obscured, so you may not be sure if you pressed the right button. With a haptic-enabled touchscreen, each button can be given a unique tactile response. A distinct thud or buzz, or no tactile feedback at all, could accompany an incorrect or illogical entry, signaling that you didn’t complete a step.
  
• When engaged in other primary tasks, like driving or attending to customers or patients, you can’t always be looking at the screen. Nor can you always rely on audio cues for guidance because sometimes the environment is too noisy or calls for quiet. A touch-enabled touchscreen is quiet, yet provides unmistakable confirmation, whether you are looking at the screen or not.

Many other types of digital devices and controls can, and are being, improved by adding haptic feedback. Think of how much better the digital world will be when you can rely more on your sense of touch — to receive information, offload your sense of sight and hearing, and feel more in control — like you do in the physical world.