Sound has long been used to enhance eating experiences, and increasingly, we know sound can shape how we perceive taste. Yet intentionally composing sounds to modulate taste remains underexplored in cross-sensory HCI design. While prior research has mapped individual auditory parameter (e.g., pitch, timbre, rhythm) to basic taste perceptions, less is known about how holistic sound compositions combining multiple parameters can be systematically designed and evaluated. We present a human-in-the-loop workflow that brings together professional sound designers and generative AI to create 160 sounds with taste intentions informed by established auditory-taste parameters. In a study with 149 participants on sound-taste correspondences, we identify sounds that strongly correspond to basic taste words. Our contributions are threefold: (1) a workflow for designing taste-matching sounds; (2) a curated repository of reusable sound stimuli for cross-sensory research; and (3) a designerly framework for creating compositional taste-matching sounds alongside insights into sound-taste word correspondences and association strategies, offering implications for cross-sensory HCI.

Cross-sensory correspondences provide opportunities for designing rich sensory HCI, with prior work showing that features such as roundness and sharpness are systematically linked to language, color, sound, and emotion. Yet two challenges remain: few technologies can dynamically transition between these features, and little is known about the thresholds at which a form is judged as sufficiently rounded or spiky to realize these cross-sensory effects. We present triMorph, a pneumatic shape-changing interface capable of smoothly morphing between spiky, flat, and rounded configurations. In a psychophysical study with 30 participants, we quantified perceptual accuracy and precision in mapping triMorph shapes to visual-linguistic categories and examined shape–color and shape–emotion correspondences. Results reveal threshold values for reliable categorization, with rounded shapes linked to pleasant emotions and lighter colors, and spiky shapes to arousal and darker tones. Our findings provide empirical foundations and design guidelines for grounding shape-changing artifacts more firmly in cross-sensory cognition.

Surface textures play a critical role in shaping interaction with tangible and multisensory technologies, yet little is known about how their microstructural features influence cognitive and affective responses - factors central to interface design. We investigated this through cross-sensory correspondences of textures systematically varying in roundness and size. Thirty participants explored 3D-printed textures under visuo-tactile and tactile-only conditions, rating them on visuo-linguistic association, roughness, colour, and emotion. Rounded textures were often linked with Bouba and pleasantness, whereas pointed textures were associated with Kiki, higher arousal, and warmer colours. Visual access also influenced exploratory behaviour, reflected in applied normal force. These findings demonstrate how microstructural tactile cues shape cross-sensory and affective associations. We propose cross-sensory correspondences as a methodological framework for designing microstructural features of surfaces textures, which could open up new design opportunities for pseudo-haptic feedback, texture-rich tangible interfaces, and coherent multisensory experiences in VR/AR.

The use of a wide range of sensory modalities is increasingly central to technologies for learning, communication, and affective regulation. During the preschool years, sensory integration develops rapidly, shaping how children perceive and make sense of their environments. A key component of this process is cross-sensory correspondence: the systematic ways in which perceptions in different sensory modalities influence one another. Despite its relevance, little is known about cross-sensory correspondences in preschool-aged children (2-4 years). We present a study with 26 preschoolers examining smell-touch-emotion correspondences through playful tasks. We found significant correspondences both between sensory modalities and between sensory modalities and affective judgements. Further analysis revealed association strategies underpinning these mappings. We contribute empirical insights into cross-sensory correspondences in early childhood, design guidelines that align with how preschoolers relate sensory input, and a replicable method for probing cross-sensory cognition in this age group.

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We explore the design of a watch that can deliver notifications through shape changes, with a specific focus on changes in curvature at the back of the watch face. We explain our design choices and the challenges we faced while creating such a watch. We conducted an experimental study to determine the absolute detection threshold (ADT) of this novel form of feedback. We compared the ADT of two different watches, both of which have a back face that can change its curvature and make contact with the wearer's wrist to notify them. These two watches exhibit different shapes when inflated with high air pressure. To determine the ADT, we conducted a standard two-down, one-up adaptive staircase procedure. Our findings show that an ADT of 3.86 psi is required to inflate the back surface for detection by participants. Overall, our qualitative findings indicate that participants enjoyed this novel type of feedback and could feel different sensations with each watch.

Soft (compliant) curvature-changing UIs provide haptic feedback through changes in softness and curvature. Different softness can impact the deformation of UIs when worn and touched, and thus impact the users’ perception of the curvature. To investigate how softness impacts users’ perception of curvature, we measured participants’ curvature perception accuracy and precision in different softness conditions. We found that participants perceived the curviest surfaces with similar precision in all different softness conditions. Participants lost half the precision of the rigid material when touching the flattest surfaces with the softest material. Participants perceived all curvatures with similar accuracy in all softness conditions. The results of our experiment lay the foundation for soft curvature perception and provide guidelines for the future design of curvature- and softness-changing UIs.

One-handed Back-of-Device (BoD) interaction proved to be desired and sometimes unavoidable with a mobile touchscreen device, for both preferred and non-preferred hands. Although users? two hands are asymmetric, the impact of this asymmetry on the performance of mobile interaction has been little studied so far. Research on one-handed BoD interaction mostly focused on the preferred hand, even though users cannot avoid in real life to handle their phone with their non-preferred hand. To better design one-handed BoD interaction tailored for each hand, the identification and measure of the impact of their asymmetry are critical. In this paper, we study the impact on the performance of the asymmetry between the preferred and the non-preferred hands when interacting with one hand in the back of a mobile touch surface. Empirical data indicates that users' preferred hand performs better than the non-preferred hand in target acquisition tasks, for both time (+10%) and accuracy (+20%). In contrast, for steering tasks, we found little difference in performance between users' preferred and non-preferred hands. These results are useful for the HCI community to design mobile interaction techniques tailored for each hand only when it is necessary. We present implications for research and design directly based on the findings of the study, in particular, to reduce the impact of the asymmetry between hands and improve the performance of both hands for target acquisition.