Facilitating the design of vibration for handheld devices

Abstract

Vibrations are actively used both to supplement the multi-modal interactions and to deliver information independently. Especially, vibration is adopted as a feedback for touch-screen type interfaces for cell phone because touch-screen interface lacks the tactile feedback. However, how to effectively design vibration is not being investigated yet although different types of vibration is used according to its application area. This study summarizes the characteristics of vibrations especially in the view point of human perception, and covers a couple of attempts to composing vibrations currently used. Finally, a suggested design for developing software tools which facilitates the design of effective vibrations is presented as a conclusion. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.