D. McGookin and S. Brewster (Eds.): HAID 2006, LNCS 4129, pp. 145–156, 2006. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006 An Activity Classification for Vibrotactile Phenomena Conor O’Sullivan 1 and Angela Chang 2 1 600 North US Highway 45, DS-175, Libertyville, IL 60048, USA conor.o’sullvan@motorola.com 2 20 Ames St. Cambridge, MA 02139 USA anjchang@media.mit.edu Abstract. We observe that the recent availability of audio-haptic actuators al- low richer vibration content to be available in commercial devices. However, we note that consumers are unable to take advantage of these rich experiences, mainly due to the lack of a descriptive language for vibration. We analyze the current methods for classifying vibrations. We propose a new framework for describing vibrotactile haptic phenomena, based on an organizing the media based on content activity. We describe this naming system, based on Russolo’s families of noise, and address other pertinent issues to introducing vibration content into commercial devices. 1 Introduction Today there is a gap in the community and industry of haptic actuation technology (specifically vibrotactile sensations) that needs to be addressed to allow a more general adoption of and dedicated engagement with the technology. In various forums of research, presentation and informal discussion it was found that although the average consumer or target adopter of such technology seems comfortable or even enthusiastic with their experience of haptics, the extent to which they are able to communicate and describe this experience seems very limited. The language of describing haptic phenomena in consumer electronic devices seems thus far limited to a small selection of words such as ‘buzz’ or ‘vibrate’, even as the devices are evolving to allow richer experiences (such as gesture input, vibration enhanced ringtones, and UI feedback). To understand how a general population can talk about haptics they need to understand how to create and distinguish among haptic effects. The correlation between audio and haptics in the case of the mobile device has already been shown [6]. Audio-haptics (driving vibrations using audio signals [27]) for consumer devices can be generated by audio manipulation and synthesis [15], but are perceived tactilely as a more advanced form of vibration. It is of course sufficient to speak of vibe or buzzing in the general case of vibration alert mechanisms. Given the range and depth of current and future haptic actuation technologies however, it is imperative that a more user-friendly, sensorial descriptions are available. This will allow the general consumer to become knowledgeable, interested and profi- cient in the language of haptic description. A consumer armed with such proficiency