MULTISENSORY INTERACTION / DESIGN ENABLEMENT

Making haptic interaction tangible.

I saw an opportunity to make product feedback more inclusive and expressive through touch. I then made haptics practical for designers to explore, helped apply them in product experiences, and shaped reusable guidance for consistent use.

Interaction design

Prototyping

Multisensory UX

Three phone screens showing a haptic feedback reference and exploration tool.

Original haptics reference tool and companion product explorations.

THE BIG PICTURE

I made haptic feedback something designers could experience, experiment with, and use consistently without writing code.

01 / THE OPPORTUNITY

Give people more than one way to understand an interaction.

Our aim went beyond baseline accessibility requirements. People have different sensory capabilities, attention, contexts, and preferences for receiving information. Haptics offered another channel alongside visuals and sound: a quiet way to confirm actions, reinforce outcomes, and help an experience feel responsive. The goal was not to replace accessible content, but to communicate in more inclusive ways.

There was a practical barrier. Although native haptic effects already existed on mobile devices, designers could not easily feel, compare, or explore them without writing code, and Xfinity had no shared approach for using them.

The design gap

To make haptics useful across products, I first had to make the medium accessible to the designers working with it.

02 / DESIGN RESPONSE

I made haptic effects something designers could experience.

I first made a ProtoPie prototype to explore native iOS impact, notification, and selection patterns. I then shaped the UX of a working iOS reference tool with visual design and XD Engineering, combining on-device playback with descriptions, examples, and custom haptic and audio explorations.

EARLY EXPLORATORY PROTOTYPE

Early mobile ProtoPie prototype used to test native iOS haptic effects.

Early ProtoPie browser used to feel and compare native iOS haptic patterns before building the reference app.

CODED IOS REFERENCE TOOL

Two iPhone screens of the working haptics reference tool, showing selectable haptic effects and a playback/detail view, without additional branding.

The coded iOS tool let designers play effects on-device, compare them, and read guidance before applying patterns in product work.

Prototype before prescribing

I explored native effects by feeling them first, rather than setting rules from developer documentation.

Build on familiar conventions

Success, warning, and error cues should generally align with feedback people already recognize in iOS.

Specify what the OS leaves open

I defined additional product-level guidance and explored custom patterns where a shared Xfinity approach was needed.

03 / PRODUCT APPLICATIONS

Two product contexts called for different feedback decisions.

XClass TV gave us an opportunity to apply familiar operating-system feedback. Xfinity Health Check, a guided home-internet diagnostic experience, required more deliberate choreography between touch, sound, animation, and the on-screen message.

XCLASS TV / iOS

XClass: start with familiar cues.

Native success and error feedback could reinforce activation status, while tactile confirmation on the iOS virtual remote helped people register presses even when their finger obscured the target.

XClass TV iOS app displaying TV activation and the on-screen virtual remote, with clean image corners.

XClass TV iOS: original application screens showing native feedback used for activation and virtual-remote interactions.

XFINITY HEALTH CHECK / INTERNET DIAGNOSTICS

Health Check: coordinate every feedback signal.

I designed parts of the diagnostic flow and mapped exactly when haptics, sound effects, animation, and copy should reinforce progress, completion, errors, and recovery.

Four original Xfinity Health Check diagnostic screens paired with documented haptic triggers, sound effects and choreography timing.

Original Health Check interaction specification: UI states above the haptic, sonic, and animation triggers coordinating each moment.

04 / RESEARCH INSIGHTS

Testing showed where haptics helped, and where they didn’t.

The early Health Check specifications explored tactile feedback during ongoing actions, including an effect aligned with each full rotation of the restart animation. We then evaluated proposed haptics and sound in an interactive prototype with participants who had different sensory needs and preferences. Testing showed that haptics were more useful for confirming completed steps than for indicating progress. Those findings informed our subsequent guidance on when, and when not, to use tactile feedback.

Original Health Check research findings documenting where haptic and sound feedback helped or was missed by participants with different sensory capabilities.

Excerpt from the original Health Check research findings. Shown as documented, with the design decisions below summarized for this case study.

WHAT THE RESEARCH CHANGED

Prioritize completion

Use tactile confirmation when a step finishes, rather than adding continuous feedback during progress.

Synchronize meaningful cues

Align haptics and sound with the exact animation or outcome they reinforce, especially completion and errors.

Design for sensory differences

Some participants did not notice or recognize the feedback. Keep essential information visible and understandable without relying on haptics alone.

05 / REUSABLE SYSTEM

I translated the learning into guidance teams could reuse.

The research helped refine when haptics added useful confirmation, when they should reinforce sound and motion, and when adding another signal would be redundant. I brought that learning together with the reference tool and practical usage guidance.

Alongside the haptic use matrix and design principles, I partnered with XD Engineering to explore representing effects as design tokens. That implementation model was a proof of concept, while custom branded haptics were an additional exploration.

DESIGN CHOREOGRAPHY

Avoid duplicates

Skip a separate haptic if the experience immediately transitions into a success state.

Synchronize confirmation

Coordinate the success haptic with its accompanying sound.

Anchor to animation

Align tactile feedback with the visible interaction event.