Nonverbal cues in text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC), initially introduced to compensate for the lack of social and emotional cues, have evolved beyond their original purpose to express user identity. In particular, embodied identity cues—such as a user’s real face—remain relatively underexplored in text-based CMC despite their potential as richer cues. Recent advances in generative AI have lowered the barrier to AI-mediated self-presentation, yet empirical research is still needed to understand how these cues operate in real interactions and how users experience and accept them. To address this gap, we investigate the social and emotional effects of face-swapped GIFs (FSGIFs) created via generative AI. In a two-phase within-subjects experiment with 32 participants (16 dyads of close acquaintances), we find that FSGIFs significantly enhance relational benefits, including greater co-presence and intimacy compared to generic GIFs. Based on these findings and insights from interviews, we discuss design implications for AI-mediated self-presentation in text-based CMC.

One can embed a vibration actuator to a physical button and augment the physical button’s original kinesthetic response with a programmable vibration generated by the actuator. Such vibration-augmented buttons inherit the advantages of both physical and virtual buttons. This paper reports the information transmission capacity of vibration-augmented buttons. It was obtained by conducting a series of absolute identification experiments while increasing the number of augmented buttons. The information transmission capacity found was 2.6 bits, and vibration-augmented and physical buttons showed similar abilities in rendering easily recognizable haptic responses. In addition, we showcase a VR text entry application that utilizes vibration-augmented buttons. Our method provides several error messages to the user during text entry using a VR controller that includes an augmented button. We validate that the variable haptic feedback improves task performance, cognitive workload, and user experience for a transcription task.

As computing paradigms shift toward mobile and ubiquitous interaction, there is an increasing demand for wearable interfaces supporting multifaceted input in smart living environments. In this regard, we introduce a system that identifies contact fingers using vibration as a modality of communication. We investigate the vibration characteristics of the communication channels involved and simulate the transmission of vibration sequences. In the simulation, we test and refine modulation and demodulation methods to design vibratory communication protocols that are robust to environmental noises and can detect multiple simultaneous contact fingers. As a result, we encode an on-off keying sequence with a unique carrier frequency to each finger and demodulate the sequences by applying cross-correlation. We verify the communication protocols in two environments, laboratory and cafe, where the resulting highest accuracy was 93 % and 90.5 %, respectively. Our system achieves over 91 % accuracy in identifying seven contact states from three fingers while wearing only two actuator rings with the aid of a touch screen. Our findings shed light on diversifying touch interactions on rigid surfaces by means of vibratory communication.

In tactile interaction, a phantom sensation refers to an illusion felt on the skin between two distant points at which vibrations are applied. It can improve the perceptual spatial resolution of tactile stimulation with a few tactors. All phantom sensations reported in the literature act on the skin or out of the body, but no such reports exist for those eliciting sensations penetrating the body. This paper addresses tactile phantom sensations in which two vibration actuators on the dorsal and palmar sides of the hand present an illusion of vibration passing through the hand. We also demonstrate similar tactile illusions for the torso. For optimal design, we conducted user studies while varying vibration frequency, envelope function, stimulus duration, and penetrating direction. Based on the results, we present design guidelines on penetrating phantom sensations for its use in immersive virtual reality applications.

Physical buttons provide clear haptic feedback when pressed and released, but their responses are unvarying. Physical buttons can be powered by force actuators to produce unlimited click sensations, but the cost is substantial. An alternative can be augmenting physical buttons with simple and inexpensive vibration actuators. When pushed, an augmented button generates a vibration overlayed on the button's original kinesthetic response, under the general framework of haptic augmented reality. We explore the design space of augmented buttons while changing vibration frequency, amplitude, duration, and envelope. We then visualize the perceptual structure of augmented buttons by estimating a perceptual space for 7 physical buttons and 40 augmented buttons. Their sensations are also assessed against adjectives, and results are mapped into the perceptual space to identify meaningful perceptual dimensions. Our results contribute to understanding the benefits and limitations of programmable vibration-augmented physical buttons with emphasis on their feels.

We present VibEye: a vibration-mediated recognition system of objects for tangible interaction. A user holds an object between two fingers wearing VibEye. VibEye triggers a vibration from one finger, and the vibration that has propagated through the object is sensed at the other finger. This vibration includes information about the object's identity, and we represent it using a spectrogram. Collecting the spectrograms of many objects, we formulate the object recognition problem to a classical classification problem among the images. This simple method, when tested with 20 users, shows 92.5% accuracy for 16 objects of the same shape with various materials. This material-based classifier is also extended to the recognition of everyday objects. Lastly, we demonstrate several tangible applications where VibEye provides the needed functionality while enhancing user experiences. VibEye is particularly effective for recognizing objects made of different materials, which is difficult to distinguish by other means such as light and sound.

The use of large displays is becoming increasingly prevalent, but development of the usability of three-dimensional (3D) interaction with large displays is still in the early stage. One way to improve the usability of 3D interaction is to develop appropriate control–display (CD) gain function. Nevertheless, unlike in desktop environments, the effects of the relationship between control space and display space in 3D interaction have not been investigated. Moreover, 3D interaction with large displays is natural and intuitive similar to how we work in the physical world. Therefore, a CD gain function that considers human behavior might improve the usability of interaction with large displays. The first experiment was conducted to identify the characteristics of user’s natural hand motion and the user perception of target in distal pointing. Thirty people participated and the characteristics of users’ natural hand movements and the 3D coordinates of their pointing positions were derived. These characteristics were considered in development of motion–display (MD) gain which is a new position-to-position CD mapping. Then, MD gain was experimentally verified by comparing it with Laser pointing, which is currently the best existing CD mapping technique; 30 people participated. MD gain was superior to the existing pointing technique in terms of both performance and subjective satisfaction. MD gain can also be personalized for further improvement. This is an initial attempt to reflect natural human pointing gesture in distal pointing technique, and the developed technique (MD gain) was experimentally proved to be superior to the existing techniques. This achievement is worthy because even a marginal improvement in the performance of pointing task, which is a fundamental and frequent task, can have a large effect on users’ productivity. These results can be used as a resource to understand the characteristics of user’s natural hand movement, and MD gain can be directly applied to situations in which distal pointing is needed, such as interacting with smart TVs or with wall displays. Furthermore, the concept that maps natural human behavior in motor space and an object in visual space can be applied to any interactive system.

In this research, we present the design and formative evaluation of an interactive simulation for informal learning environments. The wearable feature of Augmented Reality(AR) glasses enables full-body movement and embodied interactions in digitally augmented physical environments. The interactive simulation was developed to engage and immerse users to understand an abstract scientific concept about the refraction of light. To design playful and meaningful learning experiences, several design features related to social interaction, multi-user interaction, and embodied interaction were unpacked and integrated in the design process. Through the formative evaluation with participants in the laboratory setting, we found several possibilities and challenges about designing an interactive simulation in informal learning contexts using AR glasses.

In this paper, we present the research in-progress, which aims to design a mobile application that can support social learning experiences in a game-like environment. Our research was mainly motivated by the fundamental dilemma in children and new media that the penetration of digital media in children's life poses both opportunities and risks. Adopting the key ideas of serious games, we have been investigating the design and development of a mobile social learning application leveraging the affordances of social networks and gamification. The purpose of this paper is to provide the initial design framework that has guided the design of our mobile social learning application. In particular, we present the analysis of the existing social networking sites designed for children, and extracted essential features. Overall, we found that the existing platforms are lack of supporting children's internal motivation, and adaptation features for emergent and customizable structures. Design ideas and rationales are presented to demonstrate how our application has been conceptualized to incorporate meaningful gamification and adaptive learning strategies.

Online social network services have embedded social rating systems that users can evaluate and share the quality of content such as the “Like” button for Facebook. This rating system is an important mechanism in social interaction since the system can affect the degree of user connection and the spread of information sharing. Most of such social rating systems, however, are based on the fixed feedback mechanism, where users cannot communicate their emotion and evaluation toward certain content in a real-time manner. In this research, we propose a novel feedback method that dynamically updates rating scores in social network services to give users immediate feedback. To confirm the usefulness of dynamic feedback mechanism compared to the current static feedback mechanism, we conducted an exploratory experiment with 46 participants in a simulated Facebook situation. Since types of content matter for the nature and degree of social interaction, we assumed that the dynamic feedback mechanism might yield different effects to different types of content. Hence, in the experiment, we included three different types of content, namely a) user-generated content, b) news article, and c) commercial advertisement, to examine the interaction effect between feedback mechanism and content types. The dependent variable was the number of “Like” clicks. The results indicate that the dynamic feedback type received significantly higher “Like” clicks than the fixed feedback type. Further, there was a significant interaction effect between feedback types and content types. The dynamic feedback mechanism was the most effective for the user-generated content type.