Haptic enhanced Microinteractions : A study of how haptic feedback affects perceived usefulness of microinteractions in handheld touchscreen devices

Sammanfattning: This research explores how haptic feedback can increase the usefulness of microinteractions on touchscreen devices. With the importance of microinteraction in user daily lives and with the increase of availability of haptic generating devices, this thesis studies how a realistic user group perceive haptic feedback in microinteractions. It studied the perceived usefulness of haptic feedback in correlation to specific microinteractions. Microinteractions are defined as small actions responding to user interaction, examples tested in this study included, simple buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes and dropdown menus. The participants also test and evaluated generic haptic patterns currently available on iOS devices. A software prototype was produced in a prototype tool called Protopie and then tested on an iOS device (iPhone 11 pro). This study is of qualitative character meaning it relies on qualitative data. The collection method relied on a combination of two types of research methods, usability studies and in-depth interviews. Nine participants were interviewed and studied using these methods. This data was analysed using a qualitative analysis method called Applied Thematic Analysis (ATA). This method allows for the creation of themes to be used in the final discussion of the report. In this thesis, a number of four themes were found. These themes combined with previous haptic principles serve as the academic foundation on which answers to the research questions was made. The results show a general increase in the perceived usefulness of tested microinteractions. With microinteractions such as checkboxes and radio buttons benefitting greatly by the haptic enhancement.[A1]  The conclusion of the research found several future areas of research within HaXD.   [A1]Here are the results shortly describe as in previous version. Enough?