New Challenges in Handheld Touchscreens

from Advanced Imaging Magazine:

By Dr. Andrew Hsu

The wide adoption of capacitive touchscreens has brought new considerations and challenges to designers. Interaction with handheld devices via gestures is gaining more attention.

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To enhance the level of physical feedback, designers can also incorporate haptics (touch feedback), also known as “rumble feedback,” “tactile feedback,” and “vibrotactile feedback.” Haptics solutions enhance user feedback to touch input by associating a tactile effect, achieved through an actuator such as a motor, to a particular touch or gesture. Today there are improved haptics solutions, such as Immersion’s TouchSense® technology, that provides a wide library of haptic effects, making it easy for designers to integrate. Imagine subtle exertion when you touch a button icon or scrolling with wheel-like rotation effects can make an interface both compelling and easy to use.

Software design around capacitive touchscreens is more art than science and simplicity is the name of the game. Since touchscreens are complex control systems, the challenge is how to make device interaction intuitive and obvious with clean and elegant design.

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Andrew Hsu has been the primary technical contact for Synaptics’ worldwide customers in the handheld space since 1999. He joined Synaptics in 1996 and led the company’s efforts into establishing a presence in the mobile handset market. Hsu developed Synaptics’ ClearPad™ technology, a transparent sensor that can be mounted under curved plastic and glass. He led the marketing for ClearPad, resulting in the first production phone with a capacitive touchscreen, the LG Prada. Prior to his current role, Hsu was a scientist and a design engineer that helped develop the first single-chip TouchPad™ solution for Synaptics. Hsu holds a doctorate in neuroscience and a master’s in computer and information science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Cal Tech.