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Haptic feedback usability

post #1 of 9
12/28/07 at 7:05pm
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Well, I've heard how haptic feedback would improve the usability of touchscreens by providing a physical response (a vibration) to a touchscreen action, kind of simulating the experience of a physical button, or an additional sensation as done with force-feedback (vibration) controllers for game consoles. It's advertized as a usability enhancement for touchscreen operation for the LG Venus/Voyager and the Samsung F7x0 (I belive).

I was curious and checked out the LG Venus and Voyager cell phones from Verizon, and at first blush, this kind of haptic feedback is craptacular. It's usability is horrible, if not, detrimental. It's spatially disorienting and confuses the user on what's going on. It could be something a user gets used, but in the end, I don't see how it helps usability in any way. The only thing it signifies is that a soft button has been pressed. Well, visual cues and sounds does this 100x better, so I don't see how this helps.

Wondering if anyone out in appleinsider land has used the Venus / Voyager and what they think?
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post #2 of 9
12/28/07 at 7:29pm
I don't know anyone with an iPhone wishing for haptic feedback. The visual feedback seems to be enough, anyway haptic feedback would reduce battery life also.

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DaHarder just got banned. Let's crack open the champagne.

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post #3 of 9
12/28/07 at 9:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ireland View Post

I don't know anyone with an iPhone wishing for haptic feedback. The visual feedback seems to be enough, anyway haptic feedback would reduce battery life also.

Exactly!

Improved visual feedback would be preferable. Tactical is already there as your fingers touch the surface. What I want to see is my finger making an impression on the screen as I touch it. That combined with a feedback sound is what the iPhone/iPod Touch needs.
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post #4 of 9
12/29/07 at 2:16pm
LG Viewty has haptic feedback, its really good in the sense that when you can then type a text with one hand like you would on any other phone, somthing I dont think you can do very easily with the iphone.

But to be honest you dont need haptics on iphone as its responsivness is brilliant.
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post #5 of 9
12/29/07 at 3:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bavlondon2 View Post

LG Viewty has haptic feedback, its really good in the sense that when you can then type a text with one hand like you would on any other phone, somthing I dont think you can do very easily with the iphone.

But to be honest you dont need haptics on iphone as its responsivness is brilliant.

I may be missing how Haptic works someone whose tried it please let me know. I thought it was there so you would know when you tapped the screen, but I can feel when my fingers press the glass. The biggest complaint on touchscreens is that you can't feel the buttons when not looking at the screen so I thought haptic was supposed to mimic buttons so you could touchtype. Or is it there to help with less responsive screens that react to any pressure instead of your touch?

I guess my question is that since I know when I press the screen, and the iPhone's screen is so good, will haptic do anything for me?
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post #6 of 9
12/29/07 at 3:56pm
Yes its bascially supposed to give of a vibration when you sucessfully touch a button on screen so to let you know youve hit it right. IMO Haptics is only needed in touch screen phones where the responsivness isnt that good. The iphones touch screen setup is really the benchmark for all other touch screen phones but so far none have been able to come close to it so they use haptics. It could be handy in the iphone for some features. For example perhaps when scrolling down a list of videos or your contacts, when you it the bottom, aswell as visually seeing that you have reached the bottom you also get a li8ttle vibration. Again this is only additonal and not really even needed as I said the interface is already near perfect.
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post #7 of 9
12/30/07 at 12:41am
The problem with some of the haptic feedback devices is that there is a delay between you pressing the virtual object and the feedback happening. Some also seem to provide feedback that is too lengthy. It's quite possible to type on one of these devices and get feedback queued up.

As bav pointed out, the key to the iPhone's UI success is it's responsiveness to input. If they married the iPhone responsiveness to zero delay feedback and correctly timed the length of feedback then it may be an advantage.

I'd love to see some more haptic INPUT though on the iPhone. They've already got the motion sensors in there for tilting the display. How about adding Sony's 'Shuffle Song' input method that they use on some of the Walkman phones where you shake the phone to shuffle. I think that's one of the cleverest things bits of UI thinking I've seen in ages.
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post #8 of 9
12/30/07 at 4:20am
The only device ive used that has haptic feedback enaled is the LG viewty. You can set different levels of the vibration you get back as feedback but anyway ive never experienced build up of feedback vibration. It lasts barley a second if even that, half a second even. But some devices as you say may have this problem.

As for accelerometers many devices hev those implemented nowdays. SE K850, SE W910,N82, N95, N95 8GB. N95 actually had it built in from the start but never made us of it until now - strange.

The shuffle thing is ok ive used it once on a SE walkman phone, honestly it loses its appeal after a while and with so much complex technology in the iphone I wonder if continuously shaking it vigourously will eventually cause harm to it - maybe not but I still wouldnt feel right about doing that. Perhaps they could enable some music controls on a little remote which is attached to the headphones and actually make the headphones worthy of wanting to keep this time. Just an idea. :-) Overall though Haptics is a nice thing but only if used the right way. Im sure Jobs and co know exactly what they are doing for the future updates and future phones.
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post #9 of 9
12/30/07 at 1:52pm
Mark my words: in the next few years we'll see some new technological developments that will make touchscreen feedback helpful and practical. For now, I haven't encountered an implementation that really works. It's like the way early cars were powered by steam.
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