Haptic technologies have advanced rapidly, yet exploration of robotic touch remains dominated by replicating realistic environmental cues or hand gestures, which narrows the design space and risks social resistance. This paper argues for alternatives: grounded in the notion of “otherness” from human-robot interaction (HRI), we propose treating robotic touch’s inherent otherness as a design quality. Instead of being a limitation in pursuing realism, otherness can be embraced to elicit ambiguity and provoke alternative interpretations, fostering expressive and evocative robotic touch design. To develop this perspective, we analyze inspirational art and design precedents and four design research cases through a reflective Research through Design (RtD) approach. Through this analysis, we articulate a set of design languages structured around why otherness matters for touch meaning-making, how it can be shaped through design strategies, and where it can be embedded within robotic touch systems. We conclude by reflecting on the tensions and risks involved in designing robotic touch with otherness in mind.

Daily interactions with things are becoming increasingly virtual and hidden, tucked away in minimalist UI's or dependent on clear voice commands. Motivated by a love for physical interactions, this work uses keys, a mundane, everyday technology, as our object of study, identifying what is being ‘designed away’ in the process of digitalization. This is achieved through a collection of found objects, material samples, and design probes. We present a visual exhibition in pictorial format, where each piece represents material qualities of physical, interactive artefacts. We conclude by discussing how the embodied qualities of these artifacts can be extended to the broader landscape of everyday physical things. Our work contributes to the TEI community through both the tangible artifacts and the identified qualities for designing future physical, everyday, interactive things.

Driven by the vision of everyday haptics, the HCI community is advocating for "design touch first" and investigating "how to touch well." However, a gap remains between the exploratory nature of haptic design and technical reproducibility. We present Shape-Kit, a hybrid design toolkit embodying our "crafting haptics" metaphor, where hand touch is transduced into dynamic pin-based sensations that can be freely explored across the body. An ad-hoc tracking module captures and digitizes these patterns. Our study with 14 designers and artists demonstrates how Shape-Kit facilitates sensorial exploration for expressive haptic design. We analyze how designers collaboratively ideate, prototype, iterate, and compose touch experiences and show the subtlety and richness of touch that can be achieved through diverse crafting methods with Shape-Kit. Reflecting on the findings, our work contributes key insights into haptic toolkit design and touch design practices centered on the "crafting haptics" metaphor. We discuss in-depth how Shape-Kit's simplicity, though remaining constrained, enables focused crafting for deeper exploration, while its collaborative nature fosters shared sense-making of touch experiences.

Driven by the vision of future responsive environments, where everyday surroundings can perceive human behaviors and respond through intelligent robotic actuation, we propose Wizard of Props (WoP): a human-centered design workflow for creating expressive, implicit, and meaningful interactions. This collaborative experience prototyping approach integrates full-scale physical props with Mixed Reality (MR) to support ideation, prototyping, and rapid testing of responsive environments. We present two design explorations that showcase our investigations of diverse design solutions based on varying technology resources, contextual considerations, and target audiences. Design Exploration One focuses on mixed environment building, where we observe fluid prototyping methods. In Design Exploration Two, we explore how novice designers approach WoP, and illustrate their design ideas and behaviors. Our findings reveal that WoP complements conventional design methods, enabling intuitive body-storming, supporting flexible prototyping fidelity, and fostering expressive environment-human interactions through in-situ improvisational performance.

Emerging research has demonstrated the viability of emotional communication through haptic technology inspired by interpersonal touch. However, the meaning-making of artificial touch remains ambiguous and contextual. We see this ambiguity caused by robotic touch’s "otherness" as an opportunity for exploring alternatives. To empower emotional haptic design in longitudinal out-of-lab exploration, we devise TactorBots, a design toolkit consisting of eight wearable hardware modules for rendering robotic touch gestures controlled by a web-based software application. We deployed TactorBots to thirteen designers and researchers to validate its functionality, characterize its design experience, and analyze what, how, and why alternative perceptions, practices, contexts, and metaphors would emerge in the experiment. We provide suggestions for designing future toolkits and field studies based on our experiences. Reflecting on the findings, we derive design implications for further enhancing the ambiguity and shifting the mindsets to expand the design space.

Fostering data visualization literacy (DVL) as part of childhood education could lead to a more data literate society. However, most work in DVL for children relies on a more formal educational context (i.e., a teacher-led approach) that limits children's engagement with data to classroom-based environments and, consequently, children's ability to ask questions about and explore data on topics they find personally meaningful. We explore how a curiosity-driven, child-led approach can provide more agency to children when they are authoring data visualizations. This paper explores how informal learning with crafting physicalizations through play and curiosity may foster increased literacy and engagement with data. Employing a constructionist approach, we designed a do-it-yourself toolkit made out of everyday materials (e.g., paper, cardboard, mirrors) that enables children to create, customize, and personalize three different interactive visualizations (bar, line, pie). We used the toolkit as a design probe in a series of in-person workshops with 5 children (6 to 11-year-olds) and interviews with 5 educators. Our observations reveal that the toolkit helped children creatively engage and interact with visualizations. Children with prior knowledge of data visualization reported the toolkit serving as more of an authoring tool that they envision using in their daily lives, while children with little to no experience found the toolkit as an engaging introduction to data visualization. Our study demonstrates the potential of using the constructionist approach to cultivate children's DVL through curiosity and play.

In this work, we bring designers into the exploration of emotional robotic touch, discuss their design decisions and reflect on their insights. Prior psychology findings show humans can communicate distinct emotions solely through touch. We hypothesize that similar effects might also be applicable to robotic touch. To enable designers to easily generate and modify various types of affective touch for conveying emotions (e.g., anger, happiness, etc.), we developed a platform consisting of a robotic tactor interface and a software design tool. When conducting an elicitation study with eleven interaction designers, we discovered common patterns in their generated tactile sensations for each emotion. We also illustrate the strategies, metaphors, and reactions that the designers deployed in the design process. Our findings uncover that the “otherness” of robotic touch broadens the design possibilities of emotional communication beyond mimicking interpersonal touch.

There is a growing need for social interaction in Virtual Reality (VR). Current social VR applications enable human-agent or interpersonal communication, usually by means of visual and audio cues. Touch, which is also an essential method for affective communication, has not received as much attention. To address this, we introduce HexTouch, a forearm-mounted robot that performs touch behaviors in sync with the behaviors of a companion agent, to complement visual and auditory feedback in virtual reality. The robot consists of four robotic tactors driven by servo motors, which render specific tactile patterns to communicate primary emotions (fear, happiness, disgust, anger, and sympathy). We demonstrate HexTouch through a VR game with physical-virtual agent interactions that facilitate the player-companion relationship and increase the immersion of the VR experience. The player will receive affective haptic cues while collaborating with the agent to complete the mission in the game. The multisensory system for affective communication also has the potential to enhance sociality in the virtual world.