A Solution to Feeling Buttons on the Touch Screen

Immersion is currently working on ways to improve the interaction between mobile phones and their users. Their research mainly regards making touch screen phones more reliable and easier to use.

The problem with touch screen mobile phones is that users often make errors when pushing a button because of the lack of reaction coming from the display. As a result, this technology can often turn out to be annoying and far from receiving the appreciation it should.

Tactile feedback received from mobile phones seems to be the solution for making touch screen displays reach top performances. A study made by Stephen Brewster and his colleagues at Glasgow University from London revealed that 25% of the subjects tend to make fewer navigation errors when the mobile phone's display responds to commands by generating vibrations.

The research was made by producing a buzz every time the user selected an item on the display. This is why making touch screens feel more like real phones is expected to make this type of technology considerably more popular and easier to use. "The basic thing we show is that having tactile feedback makes [mobile devices] more useful and usable", says Stephen Brewster.

Most of the phones that are produced nowadays have the ability of producing vibrations when a message or an incoming call is received. The vibration type used in touch screens is designed to expand the type of mobile phone-user interaction to a new level, thus making it more accessible. A technology similar to this one is currently being used by Samsung in the W559 model and is also in the development process at LG for a new phone model.