Joel Kiernan is a mechanical engineer and Stanford graduate student.

Distraction and Haptics

We demonstrate that a phone app can be effective in testing responses to haptic stimuli.

  • Research Question How can haptics be used to communicate orientation to blind users?
  • Date September 2022 - February(?) 2023

Haptics is the study of communicating information via the human sense of touch. Haptic stimuli are used in a variety of real-world scenarios, such as through collision-avoidance systems in cars, in robotic surgery, or through video game controllers. In all of these scenarios, the stimuli are provided while the user is distracted. By better understanding how people respond to haptic stimuli while distracted, lab-developed haptic devices can be better adapted for real-world applications. We used a smartphone as the platform for this study. We aimed to prove smartphones can be used as a reliable base for haptics studies. Using smartphones to run studies could open up haptic studies to a much larger, and more diverse population.

A phone case covered in heat-sensitive paint to find ergonomic finger placement
3D-printed phone case for standardized finger placement