Which is better for keystroke feedback: Visual confirmation or haptic vibration?
0 voters
So I am looking for some feedback on soft keypad interfaces (i.e. the iPhone). I have and iphone and love it, but, what are some of the perceived shortcomings of this type of interface? What would make soft keypads better? What about some sort of haptic feedback?
“Haptic feedback” sounds good, but not vibration. Visual confirmation can indicate what button was pressed. A generic “input received” confirmation would start to annoy me pretty fast; I always turn of the “click” sounds, though I don’t mind so much when it comes from mechanical keyboards. It’s sort of like:
Real combustion noise…50% annoying, 50% impressive
EV simulated combustion noise…80% annoying, 100% goofy
Obviously those numbers have no basis in anything whatsoever
You shouldn’t ask this as a survey–you need actual preference and performance data via a high-fidelity interactive prototype.
But for what it’s worth, the iPhone can technically do both, yet they choose to only use visual & auditory feedback. I’ve never heard anyone complain about that.
Regarding ‘what would make them better’, again, take a look at the many technologies at work with the iPhone keypad. They’ve got multiple keyboards, shortcut-keys, auto-completion, act-on-release, preview-on-push, slide-push, and I’m sure they’ve got a targeting algorithm in there too…
I do like the “click through” haptic feedback you get with iPods and the newest Macbook trackpads (notice they removed the button!)
What I really miss with on-screen keyboard is to be able to feel the keys before you press them. You have no feedback until you press and you can’t rest your fingers on the keys. Another note on this is a miss some kind of physical controls on my ipod touch so that I could control more than just volume when the ipod is in my pocket.
So for me the thing I really miss is that I can’t locate keys just by feeling/searching with my fingers.
So, for haptic feedback: I would like some kind of feedback before I press the “soft-keys”.
If anyone has a Wii, one thing I like about the system UI is that every time you move the cursor over an icon, you get a single vibration, and also when you click on an icon. That’s an ideal setup to me which I think mimics a keyboard pretty well, given the medium - Is this is common or unique with touchscreen stuff?