Building a navigable fine texture design space

TL;DR

This paper develops a perceptually relevant, scalable design space for fine textures on haptic displays by analyzing friction modulation features like frequency, amplitude, and irregularity, aiding intuitive texture creation.

Contribution

It introduces a 3D texture design space based on friction features and validates its perceptual relevance through multidimensional scaling and user descriptions.

Findings

Irregularity is a distinct, scalable feature of textures.

Subjects' descriptions align with the physical parameters.

The design space facilitates intuitive texture design.

Abstract

Friction modulation technology enables the creation of textural effects on flat haptic displays. However, an intuitive and manageably small design space for construction of such haptic textures remains an unfulfilled goal for user interface designers. In this paper, we explore perceptually relevant features of fine texture for use in texture construction and modification. Beginning with simple sinusoidal patterns of friction force that vary in frequency and amplitude, we define irregularity as a third building block of a texture pattern and show it to be a scalable feature distinct from the others using multidimensional scaling. Additionally, subjects' verbal descriptions of this 3-dimensional design space provide insight into their intuitive interpretation of the physical parameter changes.