Demonstration
Programmable Friction in Scrolling Interactions
Demonstration, Haptics Symposium 2012, Vancouver, Canada, March 2012.
Nominated for Best Demonstration
Abstract
Scrolling is a pervasive interaction for accessing information that is currently off screen. Devices with small screens further leverage scrolling, and are often used in scenarios where the visual attention of the user is divided between the screen and the environment. Using a touchscreen that can dynamically alter its surface friction, scrolling interactions can be augmented, providing a non-visual source of feedback about the state of the system. Detents, and other distinct patterns created from changing friction, can be used to signal when a new item has entered the screen, and the density of this feedback can be seen as the rate of scrolling. Circular scrolling, variable rate scrolling (or scrubbing), as well as other exemplar applications will be used to demonstrate how these ideas, and others, can be used to effectively augment scrolling interactions.