In resistance training, trainers employ touch guidance to help trainees control posture and activate muscles. Haptic feedback can extend this support to solitary workouts, but translating the nuances of touch into effective haptic patterns remains challenging. In this paper, we categorize the instructional messages conveyed through trainers’ touch guidance and design electrical stimulation patterns to replicate them. A preliminary study with six trainers and six trainees identified six core messages underlying touch guidance. We then designed electrical stimulation patterns for each message and refined them with two sports scientists and a UX designer, ensuring usability and grounding. Finally, sixteen gymgoers evaluated these patterns in a controlled exercise task. Participants reliably distinguished the feedback and used the instructed muscles accordingly, achieving accuracies of 97.14% and 99.22% across two sessions, cross-checked with EMG and pose estimation. These findings demonstrate that the proposed electrical stimulation feedback is intuitive and learnable.

Zooming and panning are fundamental input actions for exploring complex 2D and 3D scenes and data such as images, maps, and designs. Multi-touch zoom/pan interactions have been proven effective on mobile devices, and have been directly ported to HMDs, where they are typically accomplished by analogous but relatively large-scale movements of both hands. We argue that such motions are inefficient and induce fatigue and explore how the eye-tracking features of HMDs can be leveraged to achieve improvements. We evaluated three interaction techniques that combine gaze with two-handed, one-handed, and head-based input in a study (N = 24) that contrasts them against a baseline two-handed technique. The results indicate that gaze-assisted two- and one-handed techniques outperform the baseline (17%-36% faster), while our head-based technique achieves similar performance to the Baseline but leaves the hands free for other tasks. We further developed a VR application demonstrating these techniques and validating their practical applicability.

Voice assistants (VAs) are typically evaluated through task performance metrics and self-report questionnaires, but people’s voices themselves carry rich paralinguistic cues that reveal affect, effort, and interaction breakdowns. We present a within-subjects study (N=49) that systematically compared three VA personas across three usage scenarios to investigate whether speech-derived audio features can serve as a proxy for user experience (UX). Participants’ speech was analyzed for temporal, spectral, and linguistic markers, alongside standardized UX measures, brief mood and stress ratings, and a post-study questionnaire. We found correlations between specific speech features and self-reported satisfaction and experience. Furthermore, a machine learning model trained on speech features achieved promising accuracy in classifying UX levels, indicating that this might be a reasonable alternative to self-report instruments. Our findings establish speech as a viable, real-time signal for implicitly measuring UX and point toward adaptive VUIs that respond dynamically to emotional and usability-related vocal cues.

For Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) individuals, limited access to sound cues in outdoor environments can reduce situational awareness, making it challenging to notice events and respond to potential dangers. To address this, we investigated the needs for sound awareness and preferences of DHH individuals for visualizing environmental sounds using AR glasses. We conducted four participatory design workshops with DHH participants, social workers, and designers to explore sound awareness needs and co-design ideal visual representations. Based on our insights, we conducted interviews with 15 DHH participants to select their preferred visualizations. The most voted designs were implemented in prototype, which eight DHH participants evaluated in outdoor environment. Results demonstrate that visualizing sound cues through AR can enhance situational awareness and increase sense of safety and confidence among DHH individuals while walking outdoors. Our findings provide design suggestions for translating auditory information into accessible visual representations for DHH users.

This study investigates how avatar customization in virtual reality (VR) impacts trust formation between unacquainted individuals and how such trust transfers to subsequent face-to-face (FtF) meetings. A user study with 48 participants was conducted, where participants were assigned to either a “Similar-Self” condition, with avatars resembling their real-world appearance, or an “Alt-Self” condition, with creative avatars. The results showed that “Similar-Self” avatars led to higher initial integrity-based trust perceptions, though both avatar conditions exhibited similar trust growth during VR encounters. Trust carried over from VR to FtF with a brief recalibration period and ultimately increased beyond VR levels in FtF encounters. This research provides insights into how VR can support the development of trust in early-stage interactions and offers implications for Social VR platforms to better support trustworthy interactions across virtual-physical boundaries.

To overcome the lack of deep personalization in standard biofeedback methods, we introduce ASafePlace, a system utilizing an AI-powered, art-therapy-inspired exercise called The Safe Place, to create a personalized VR biofeedback experience. In our system, users sketch a personal sanctuary from memory, which is then transformed into a customized 360° virtual environment with personalized audio guidance for relaxation training. A study with 52 participants showed this approach effectively reduced anxiety and increased user presence, while the integration of art-therapy-inspired activity and biofeedback produced strong improvements in physiological relaxation, measured by heart rate variability and respiration rate. Qualitative results showed how participants’ sense of familiarity and presence was enhanced by the symbolic elements and natural sanctuaries created from their autobiographical memories. Our findings demonstrate that art-therapy-inspired activity is a powerful tool for creating highly effective and individualized relaxation experiences, naturally connecting the virtual environment to a user’s core memories and emotions.

Generative AI (Gen-AI) is increasingly integrated into the design of digital cultural heritage. However, most of these applications remain screen-based or virtual, limiting opportunities for visitors to encounter the AI-enhanced heritage in real-world settings. Inspired by a formative study with heritage inheritors of traditional Chinese handicrafts and the Chinese cultural heritage of Zou Ma lanterns, we design an AI-enhanced interactive installation, namely ZOMA. With this design, we explore how Gen-AI can be integrated into a hybrid heritage artifact that provides personalized, engaging and reflective experiences. We deployed the design in an exhibition space in a school of design for three weeks, and collected feedback from on-site visitors (n=100) through questionnaires and follow-up interviews with participants selected from these visitors (n=11). The analysis of the data from the on-site visitors (including system logs and the questionnaires) reveals that ZOMA could engage people in embodied and personalized heritage experiences with positive feedback on the integration of Gen-AI into the design. Our interpretation of the follow-up interviews highlights the participants’ perceptions of the interaction qualities of ZOMA and their reflections on the potential tensions in applying Gen-AI in the design of heritage exhibitions. Our work extends the existing discussions on the topics of hybrid heritage crafts, tangible and embodied interaction, participatory heritage exhibitions, and ethical concerns regarding AI hallucination in heritage. We provide design implications for future design practices integrating Gen-AI in heritage contexts.

In virtual reality (VR), our virtual body can have different characteristics from our real body, such as appearance, size, and even extra body parts. Previous research shows that haptic feedback enhances the user-perceived embodiment of those dissimilar avatars. In particular, weight-shifting devices showed the potential to enhance arm deformation. However, there has been no exploration of using such techniques to enhance embodiment with extra body parts, like wings. We introduce HapticWings, a back-wearable 2D weight-shifting device that provides haptic feedback for wing motions, enhancing the user embodiment of avatars with extra wings. In three user studies, we explored (1) users’ abilities to recognize different weight-shifting motions provided by HapticWings, (2) users’ perceived embodiment of avatars with extra wings when providing haptic feedback for wing motions, and (3) four possible applications and used two of them to evaluate users’ sense of realism and enjoyment in VR.

Environmental haptic interfaces have been extensively researched for their ability to enhance spatial realism, diversity, and immersion in Virtual Reality (VR). Among these, the Overhead Haptic Interface (OHI) has shown unique interaction opportunities in VR, such as space design, training, and entertainment. However, direct touch interaction with encountered-type OHI and users' perceptual abilities in these contexts remain underexplored. In this paper, we introduce HaptiCeiling, an OHI utilizing a parallel mechanical system driven by three linear actuators. The system allows translational motion along the z-axis from 0 to$450 m m$and angular motion from −30 degrees to 30 degrees around both x and y-axes, enabling the rendering of various OHIs in VR. Through three user studies, we explored (1) just-noticeable difference (JND) in perceiving changes of HaptiCeiling's height and tilt angle, (2) the perceptual thresholds for virtual overhead interface height and tilt angle compared to HaptiCeiling without causing any semantic violations, and (3) the perceived realism and immersion of our system across three VR applications.

Thanks to the development of virtual reality (VR) technology, there is growing research on VR avatar body deformation effects. However, previous research mainly focused on passive body deformation expression, leaving users with limited methods to actively control their virtual bodies. To address this gap, we explored user-controlled forearm deformation by investigating how hand and forearm gestures can be mapped to various degrees of avatar forearm deformation. We conducted a gesture design workshop with six designers to generate gesture sets for different forearm deformations and deformation degrees, resulting in 15 gesture sets. Then, we selected the three highest-rated gesture sets and conducted a comparative study to evaluate the sense of embodiment and user performance across the three gesture sets. Our findings provide design suggestions for gesture-controlled forearm deformation in VR.

With the development of virtual reality (VR) technology, research is being actively conducted on how incorporating multisensory feedback can create the illusion that virtual avatars are perceived as an extension of the body in VR. In line with this research direction, we introduce ArmDeformation, a wearable device employing skin-stretching to enhance virtual forearm ownership during arm deformation illusion. We conducted five user studies with 98 participants. Using a developed tabletop device, we confirmed the optimal number of actuators and the ideal skin-stretching design effectively increases the user’s body ownership. Additionally, we explored the maximum visual threshold for forearm bending and the minimum detectable bending direction angle when using skin-stretching in VR. Finally, our study demonstrates that using ArmDeformation in VR applications enhances user realism and enjoyment compared to relying on visual feedback alone.

Finger wearable haptic devices enrich virtual reality experiences by offering haptic feedback corresponding to the virtual environment. However, despite the effectiveness of current finger wearable haptic devices in delivering haptic feedback, many are often constrained in their ability to provide force feedback across a diverse range of directions or to sustain it. Therefore, we present AirPush, a finger wearable haptic device capable of generating continuously adjustable force feedback in multiple directions using compressed air. To evaluate its usability, we conducted a technical evaluation and four user studies: (1) we obtained the user’s perceptual thresholds of angles under different directions on horizontal and vertical planes, (2) in perception studies, we found that users can identify five different magnitudes of force and eight different motion when using AirPush, and (3) using it in VR applications, we confirmed that users felt more realistic and immersed when using AirPush than the HTC VIVE Controller or AirPush with a fixed nozzle.

When we enter Virtual Reality (VR) in the first person, the avatar replaces our real body. Within a certain range of mismatches, we tend to identify with our avatar and perceive it as our own body. Previous research has shown that we can even believe that a deformed forearm is our own through haptic and visual feedback. However, the haptic devices used in earlier research were only explored using skin-stretching and weight-shifting. Vibrotactile feedback is the most common technique used to create a haptic VR experience in academia and industry because of its light weight and ease of application. Taking these advantages, we introduce VibroArm, a lightweight wearable haptic system with the vibrotactile funneling illusion that enhances the virtual forearm’s ownership in the forearm deformation illusion. In a perceptual study, we determined that users can make correct direction judgments about vibration on the forearm in different directions. The result shows that all vibration patterns can be sufficiently recognized, with an average recognition rate of $87.17 \%$. Based on our results, we designed 18 vibration patterns and compared their impact on the forearm deformation illusion. Finally, our study shows that using VibroArm in VR applications can significantly improve user realism and enjoyment compared to relying on visual feedback alone.

Current head-mounted displays enable users to explore virtual worlds by simply walking through them (i.e., real-walking VR). This led researchers to create haptic displays that can also simulate different types of elevation shapes. However, existing shape-changing floors are limited by their tabletop scale or the coarse resolution of the terrains they can display due to the limited number of actuators and low vertical resolution. To tackle this challenge, we introduce Elevate, a dynamic and walkable pin-array floor on which users can experience not only large variations in shapes but also the details of the underlying terrain. Our system achieves this by packing 1200 pins arranged on a 1.80 × 0.60m platform, in which each pin can be actuated to one of ten height levels (resolution: 15mm/level). To demonstrate its applicability, we present our haptic floor combined with four walkable applications and a user study that reported increased realism and enjoyment.

Assembling circuits is a challenging and time consuming activity for novice makers, frequently resulting in incorrect placements of wires and components into breadboards. This results in errors that are difficult to identify and debug, and delays that hinder creating, exploring or reconfiguring circuit layouts. This paper presents VirtualWire, a tool that allows users to rapidly design and modify circuits in software and have these changes instantiated in real-time as electrical connections on a physical breadboard. To achieve this, VirtualWire dynamically translates circuit design files into physical connections inside a hardware switching matrix, which handles wiring across breadboard rows and to/from an embedded Arduino. The user can interactively test, tune, and share different circuit layouts for an Arduino shield, and once satisfied, can fabricate the circuit on a permanent substrate. Quantitative and qualitative user studies demonstrate that VirtualWire significantly reduces the time taken for (by 37%), and the number of errors made during (by 53%) circuit assembly, while also supporting users in creating readable, space-efficient and flexible layouts.

Assembling circuits on breadboards using reference designs is a common activity among makers. While tools like Fritzing offer a simplified visualization of how components and wires are connected, such pictorial depictions of circuits are rare in formal educational materials and the vast bulk of online technical documentation. Electronic schematics are more common but are perceived as challenging and confusing by novice makers. To improve access to schematics, we propose SchemaBoard, a system for assisting makers in assembling and inspecting circuits on breadboards from schematic source materials. SchemaBoard uses an LED matrix integrated underneath a working breadboard to visualize via light patterns where and how components should be placed, or to highlight elements of circuit topology such as electrical nets and connected pins. This paper presents a formative study with 16 makers, the SchemaBoard system, and a summative evaluation with an additional 16 users. Results indicate that SchemaBoard is effective in reducing both the time and the number of errors associated with building a circuit based on a reference schematic, and for inspecting the circuit for correctness after its assembly.

Force feedback is said to be the next frontier in virtual reality (VR). Recently, with consumers pushing forward with untethered VR, researchers turned away from solutions based on bulky hardware (e.g., exoskeletons and robotic arms) and started exploring smaller portable or wearable devices. However, when it comes to rendering inertial forces, such as when moving a heavy object around or when interacting with objects with unique mass properties, current ungrounded force feedback devices are unable to provide quick weight shifting sensations that can realistically simulate weight changes over 2D surfaces. In this paper we introduce Aero-plane, a force-feedback handheld controller based on two miniature jet propellers that can render shifting weights of up to 14 N within 0.3 seconds. Through two user studies we: (1) characterize the users' ability to perceive and correctly recognize different motion paths on a virtual plane while using our device; and, (2) tested the level of realism and immersion of the controller when used in two VR applications (a rolling ball on a plane, and using kitchen tools of different shapes and sizes). Lastly, we present a set of applications that further explore different usage cases and alternative form-factors for our device.

Abstract Creating objects with threads is commonly referred to as string art. It is typically a manual, tedious work reserved for skilled artists. In this paper, we investigate how to automatically fabricate string art pieces from one single continuous thread in such a way that it looks like an input image. The proposed system consists of a thread connection optimization algorithm and a custom‐made fabrication machine. It allows casual users to create their own personalized string art pieces in a fully automatic manner. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations demonstrated our system can create visually appealing results.

Smart-rings are ideal for subtle and always-available haptic notifications due to their direct contact with the skin. Previous researchers have highlighted the feasibility of haptic technology in smart-rings and their promise in delivering noticeable stimulations by poking a limited set of planar locations on the finger. However, the full potential of poking as a mechanism to deliver richer and more expressive information on the finger is overlooked. With three studies and a total of 76 participants, we informed the design of PokeRing, a smart-ring capable of delivering information via stimulating eight different locations around the index finger's proximal phalanx. We report our evaluation of the performance of PokeRing in semi-realistic wearable conditions, (standing and walking), and its effective usage for information transfer with twenty-one spatio-temporal patterns designed by six interaction designers in a workshop. Finally, we present three applications that exploit PokeRing's notification usages.

Smart rings are an emerging wearable technology particularly suitable for discrete notifications based on haptic cues. Previous work mostly focused on tactile actuators that stimulate only specific skin receptors on the finger, resulting in limited information expressiveness. We propose tactoRing, a novel tactile display that, by dragging a small tactor on the skin around the finger, excites multiple skin areas resulting in more accurate cue recognition. In this paper, we present the hardware and a perception study to understand the ability of users to recognize eight distinct points around the finger. Moreover, we show two different techniques to encode information through skin-dragging motion with accuracy up to 94%. We finally showcase a set of applications that, by combining sequences of tactile stimuli, achieve higher expressiveness than prior methods.