Want to create an electronic device or a user interface that provides a better overall experience?
Tactile feedback technology can help.
Tactile feedback devices—sometimes called haptic technology—can help immerse your user into an experience, help provide feedback in spite of distractions, and more.
Let’s explore how tactile feedback benefits users and designers.
What is tactile feedback?
Tactile feedback is a response provided by a device that users can feel physically. This is in contrast with other forms of feedback, like audiovisual feedback. Tactile feedback is sometimes known as haptic feedback.
Generally, tactile feedback is considered part of the user experience (UX)—it’s often incorporated as part of a user interface (UI).
You’ve almost certainly had a number of experiences with tactile feedback. The example that comes to mind for most people is the haptic feedback offered by your phone when it vibrates. You’ll quickly learn which vibrations are associated with which alerts.
People who play video games are also very familiar with haptic feedback—controllers will often vibrate in conjunction with a variety of in-game effects.
Tactile feedback is also present in a variety of user interfaces. The satisfying “click” or “pop” you feel when pressing the “On” button on your oven’s membrane switch is a perfect example of tactile feedback.
How tactile feedback works
There are several different methods for creating tactile feedback.
At General Label, we specialize in creating membrane switches. We incorporate metal domes into tactile membrane switches (membrane switches that provide tactile feedback). When these domes are pressed, the user can feel that they’ve clicked or popped into place. This is usually accompanied by other feedback (audio, visual, or both).
These metal domes can be customized based on the tactile feedback needs of the product. A metal dome may need a high level of actuating force—users will need to push hard to press the dome in, and success will be accompanied by a high degree of tactile feedback. Conversely, we can use domes that require less actuation force and that offer less tactile feedback.
Vibration is perhaps the most common form of haptic feedback—it’s a feature of basically every smartphone. There are a number of methods used to generate vibrations, including:
- The use of vibration motors, also known as haptic motors
- Using piezoelectric materials to create vibrations or simulate tapping and other physical feedback
Humans’ sense of touch is incredibly refined. This makes tactile feedback a valuable tool when designing a user experience. Let’s explore some of the benefits of tactile feedback:
Aside from tactile membrane switches, General Label can manufacture non-tactile membrane switches where the haptic, audio, or visual feedback would be necessary without the tactile metal dome.
Similarly, capacitive touch switches are a core product of General Label. Capacitive Touch switches are touch-sensitive switches with no mechanical components. They are made up of the graphic overlay, capacitive circuit and adhesive backing. These capacitive touch switches are often paired with audio, visual and/or haptic feedback.
The benefits of tactile feedback
Haptic devices can provide users and designers with a number of benefits.
The first is that haptic feedback can provide users with responses without relying on their other senses. This is imperative in scenarios where audiovisual feedback would be insufficient, dangerous, or impossible.
Industrial settings are a perfect example. In the oil and gas industry, there are loud machines everywhere, flashing lights, people moving, and a whole host of other distractions providing audiovisual “feedback”. These distractions might limit a user’s ability to register meaningful feedback from a user interface.
By using haptic feedback, a device can offer information through physical contact with a user’s body, thus limiting the chances of inputs and interactions with the user interface being misunderstood. Force feedback is hard to misinterpret, especially when a user needs to exert force to successfully interact with an interface.
Another major advantage of haptic feedback is that it can reinforce audiovisual feedback. An industrial environment where the operator is wearing gloves presses a tactile button to turn the machine on, an audio noise and green light reinforces the response. I
Haptic feedback is also essential when designing products for people with conditions that affect their ability to process auditory or visual feedback, such as color vision deficiency.
In summary, haptic feedback can be used:
- To provide more reliable feedback in scenarios where there are distractions
- To provide a more immersive user experience
- To provide a better user interface for people who may have difficulty interpreting audiovisual feedback
Devices that use tactile feedback
Any designer looking to create a user interface that provides better feedback might create a haptic device. Here are a few industries where haptic feedback is commonly used:
Consumer electronics
Electronic devices commonly provide haptic feedback. This is done either to offer users alternatives to audiovisual feedback or to create a more immersive experience.
Phones are the most well-known haptic technology. The “vibrate” function is an excellent way to provide users with alerts without creating noise—perfect for when the user is in a meeting, a movie, or another scenario where silence is of the utmost importance.
Mobile games are a good example of how haptic feedback is used in phones to provide user feedback—the aforementioned example of a controller vibrating when driving over a (virtual) rough patch of road is a perfect example.
Of course, phones aren’t the only example of consumer electronics using tactile feedback. Microwaves, ovens, and other consumer electronics with membrane switches may use metal dome arrays to provide feedback. Game controllers, tablets, and other devices may also vibrate to provide feedback.
Medical devices
Medical devices, whether they’re designed for consumers or for use in clinics, often offer haptic feedback as a means of ensuring the user knows that a given function has been activated or deactivated.
Clinics are filled with sound and noise, and haptic feedback gives medical staff a degree of certainty. Tactile feedback makes interactions with medical devices more memorable for at-home users, too, helping to ensure they don’t overuse their device. Additionally, it provides a reliable source of feedback when audiovisual cues may be missed.
Automotive
Tactile feedback is offered by buttons located on the steering wheel and throughout the console. The size and shape of these buttons provide a form of feedback, as does the feeling of pressing the buttons in and out.
This is essential when driving—drivers can’t risk taking their eyes off the road to interact with an interface.
Industrial settings
We’ve covered the use of tactile feedback in industrial settings—there are all kinds of audiovisual distractions that could cause users to miss cues. That’s a grave concern, as operating heavy machinery poses a risk to the operator and their surroundings. Haptic feedback is essential in these settings and will often be incorporated into membrane switches on industrial devices.
Tactile membrane switches vs. metal dome switches
Metal dome switches are a type of tactile membrane switch. They provide tactile feedback through the use of actuated metal domes—when those domes are pressed in, the user can feel a pop or click.
While you can build tactile membrane switches with other components, such as plastic domes, here at General Label, we always use metal domes. They’re longer lasting than plastic and provide superior tactile feedback.
Designing tactile membrane switches with General Label
A tactile membrane switch can drastically improve your user interface for all of the reasons we’ve discussed here. Interested in designing a tactile membrane switch? Get in touch with General Label today.
