Attracting Fingers with Waves: Potential Fields Using Active Lateral Forces Enhance Touch Interactions

Zhaochong Cai; David Abbink; Michaël Wiertlewski

doi:10.1145/3706598.3714030

Attracting Fingers with Waves: Potential Fields Using Active Lateral Forces Enhance Touch Interactions

Zhaochong Cai, David Abbink, Michaël Wiertlewski

Human-Robot Interaction

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

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Abstract

Touchscreens and touchpads offer intuitive interfaces but provide limited tactile feedback, usually just mechanical vibrations. These devices lack continuous feedback to guide users’ fingers toward specific directions. Recent innovations in surface haptic devices, however, leverage ultrasonic traveling waves to create active lateral forces on a bare fingertip. This paper investigates the effects and design possibilities of active forces feedback in touch interactions by rendering artificial potential fields on a touchpad. Three user studies revealed that: (1) users perceived attractive and repulsive fields as bumps and holes with similar detection thresholds; (2) step-wise force fields improved targeting by 22.9% compared to friction-only methods; and (3) active force fields effectively communicated directional cues to the users. Several applications were tested, with user feedback favoring this approach for its enhanced tactile experience, added enjoyment, realism, and ease of use.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Editors	Naomi Yamashita, Vanessa Evers, Koji Yatani, Xianghua (Sharon) Ding, Bongshin Lee, Marshini Chetty, Phoebe Toups-Dugas
Place of Publication	New York, NY
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Number of pages	13
ISBN (Electronic)	979-8-4007-1394-1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714030
Publication status	Published - 2025
Event	2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2025 - Yokohama, Japan Duration: 26 Apr 2025 → 1 May 2025

Conference

Conference	2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2025
Abbreviated title	CHI
Country/Territory	Japan
City	Yokohama
Period	26/04/25 → 1/05/25

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).

Keywords

active force
haptic feedback
surface haptics
targeting task

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10.1145/3706598.3714030

3706598.3714030Final published version, 1.4 MBLicence: CC BY

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Cai, Z., Abbink, D., & Wiertlewski, M. (2025). Attracting Fingers with Waves: Potential Fields Using Active Lateral Forces Enhance Touch Interactions. In N. Yamashita, V. Evers, K. Yatani, X. Ding, B. Lee, M. Chetty, & P. Toups-Dugas (Eds.), CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Article 925 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714030

Cai, Zhaochong ; Abbink, David ; Wiertlewski, Michaël. / Attracting Fingers with Waves : Potential Fields Using Active Lateral Forces Enhance Touch Interactions. CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. editor / Naomi Yamashita ; Vanessa Evers ; Koji Yatani ; Xianghua (Sharon) Ding ; Bongshin Lee ; Marshini Chetty ; Phoebe Toups-Dugas. New York, NY : Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2025.

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title = "Attracting Fingers with Waves: Potential Fields Using Active Lateral Forces Enhance Touch Interactions",

abstract = "Touchscreens and touchpads offer intuitive interfaces but provide limited tactile feedback, usually just mechanical vibrations. These devices lack continuous feedback to guide users{\textquoteright} fingers toward specific directions. Recent innovations in surface haptic devices, however, leverage ultrasonic traveling waves to create active lateral forces on a bare fingertip. This paper investigates the effects and design possibilities of active forces feedback in touch interactions by rendering artificial potential fields on a touchpad. Three user studies revealed that: (1) users perceived attractive and repulsive fields as bumps and holes with similar detection thresholds; (2) step-wise force fields improved targeting by 22.9% compared to friction-only methods; and (3) active force fields effectively communicated directional cues to the users. Several applications were tested, with user feedback favoring this approach for its enhanced tactile experience, added enjoyment, realism, and ease of use.",

keywords = "active force, haptic feedback, surface haptics, targeting task",

author = "Zhaochong Cai and David Abbink and Micha{\"e}l Wiertlewski",

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year = "2025",

doi = "10.1145/3706598.3714030",

language = "English",

editor = "Naomi Yamashita and Vanessa Evers and Koji Yatani and Ding, {Xianghua (Sharon)} and Bongshin Lee and Marshini Chetty and Phoebe Toups-Dugas",

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Cai, Z , Abbink, D & Wiertlewski, M 2025, Attracting Fingers with Waves: Potential Fields Using Active Lateral Forces Enhance Touch Interactions. in N Yamashita, V Evers, K Yatani, X Ding, B Lee, M Chetty & P Toups-Dugas (eds), CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems., 925, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York, NY, 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2025, Yokohama, Japan, 26/04/25. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714030

Attracting Fingers with Waves: Potential Fields Using Active Lateral Forces Enhance Touch Interactions. / Cai, Zhaochong ; Abbink, David ; Wiertlewski, Michaël.
CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ed. / Naomi Yamashita; Vanessa Evers; Koji Yatani; Xianghua (Sharon) Ding; Bongshin Lee; Marshini Chetty; Phoebe Toups-Dugas. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2025. 925.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

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T1 - Attracting Fingers with Waves

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AU - Abbink, David

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PY - 2025

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N2 - Touchscreens and touchpads offer intuitive interfaces but provide limited tactile feedback, usually just mechanical vibrations. These devices lack continuous feedback to guide users’ fingers toward specific directions. Recent innovations in surface haptic devices, however, leverage ultrasonic traveling waves to create active lateral forces on a bare fingertip. This paper investigates the effects and design possibilities of active forces feedback in touch interactions by rendering artificial potential fields on a touchpad. Three user studies revealed that: (1) users perceived attractive and repulsive fields as bumps and holes with similar detection thresholds; (2) step-wise force fields improved targeting by 22.9% compared to friction-only methods; and (3) active force fields effectively communicated directional cues to the users. Several applications were tested, with user feedback favoring this approach for its enhanced tactile experience, added enjoyment, realism, and ease of use.

AB - Touchscreens and touchpads offer intuitive interfaces but provide limited tactile feedback, usually just mechanical vibrations. These devices lack continuous feedback to guide users’ fingers toward specific directions. Recent innovations in surface haptic devices, however, leverage ultrasonic traveling waves to create active lateral forces on a bare fingertip. This paper investigates the effects and design possibilities of active forces feedback in touch interactions by rendering artificial potential fields on a touchpad. Three user studies revealed that: (1) users perceived attractive and repulsive fields as bumps and holes with similar detection thresholds; (2) step-wise force fields improved targeting by 22.9% compared to friction-only methods; and (3) active force fields effectively communicated directional cues to the users. Several applications were tested, with user feedback favoring this approach for its enhanced tactile experience, added enjoyment, realism, and ease of use.

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Cai Z , Abbink D , Wiertlewski M. Attracting Fingers with Waves: Potential Fields Using Active Lateral Forces Enhance Touch Interactions. In Yamashita N, Evers V, Yatani K, Ding X, Lee B, Chetty M, Toups-Dugas P, editors, CHI '25: Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). 2025. 925 doi: 10.1145/3706598.3714030

Attracting Fingers with Waves: Potential Fields Using Active Lateral Forces Enhance Touch Interactions

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Keywords

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