Hands on Haptics: Exploring Non-Visual Visualisation Using the Sense of Touch

A CHI 2005 WORKSHOP

3-4th APRIL 2005

PORTLAND, OREGON

Format of the Workshop.

This workshop is planned to last over two days. The first day will consist of short oral presentations of position papers, demos and discussion. . Novel haptic designs are traditionally difficult to articulate in a traditional conference format, therefore demonstrations will be emphasised as a core part of the activities to maximise the benefits provided by the workshop format. At the end of the first day, the workshop participants will have drawn up a list of common problems, solutions and promising directions in haptic visualisation.

The second day is the "hands on" day! Participants will work together in small groups in order to produce tangible mock-ups of haptic visualisations, which exemplify the successful or interesting design strategies resulting from day one. Participants will be expected to create mock-ups with materials to hand; no complicated engineering will be required, just gluing together cardboard, textiles and other items exemplifying relevant haptic properties (size, shape, compliance, and others) and how they might be combined to present data.

The groups will then present their design to the workshop, to stimulate further discussion and potentially refine and expand the output in terms of potential solutions and promising directions. At the culmination of the workshop and the hands on day, the participants should have further refined the design strategies for haptic visualisation on day one, and have documented examples of the tangible mock-ups, the most successful of which can then be implemented using haptic devices after the workshop, and then more formally evaluated.

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