A lot of the interfaces that designers create are digital interfaces for screens and pages, or auditory interfaces. There is also a specialty area in human factors and interface design that is all about interfaces that people physically touch. This is called “haptics”.
K.E. MacLean (2008) writes about tactile feedback and user experience. People often enjoy physically engaging with a product. Haptics provide a sense of control and immersion.
In particular, people enjoy pressing physical buttons (Plotnick, 2018). Research shows that button pressing can provide a satisfying and enjoyable experience due to the tactile and interactive nature of button pressing, as well as the sense of control and agency that it provides.
Pressing buttons is a conditioned automatic response. People will reach out to push a button before they realize they are doing so.
Takeaways
- If you are considering whether to have a purely digital product versus a physical product or a combined digital and physical, consider adding a physical component to so that you can include a haptic interface.
- Actual buttons, or digital buttons designed to mimic actual buttons, will have increased engagement compared with “flat” digital buttons.
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