Vibrotactile experiences (VTX) consist of a multitude of design parameters and experiential dimensions that can be challenging to communicate visually. To understand how this is commonly done in scientific communication, we systematically reviewed VTX illustrations in academic publications. Using inductive and deductive methods, we built a taxonomy detailing characteristics of VTX illustrations that focuses on what is illustrated and how it is depicted. Using the taxonomy, we coded a total of 768 figures spanning 409 publications. These results indicate that (1) half of the illustrations communicate on the timing of vibrotactile feedback with regards to users’ actions, (2) illustrations depict stimuli rather than experiences and infrequently communicate multimodal aspects of the experiences, and (3) contextual information of vibrotactile displays and experiential aspects are often distributed across several complementary figures. We conclude by discussing the benefits and limitations of this taxonomy to support the design process.
ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems