Applications of Haptic Devices & Virtual Reality in Consumer Products Usability Evaluation

Usability has come to play an important role in interface design. Product usability focus on product ease of use first and foremost with consideration to users demographics, experience level and user requirements to serve the population efficiently. Virtual reality technologies provide novel and enhanced modes of human computer interaction that can be used as a potential tool to support product usability testing in far more efficient way starting from early project stage. The interaction component of this high-end user interface involves multiple sensory channels, such as the visual, auditory, haptic, olfactory, and taste inputs. Significant research has been done in this area but researchers have not yet provided an assessment on the relative impacts on VR systems development. Haptic devices allow users to touch, feel and manipulate three-dimensional objects in virtual environments and this technology started to get worldwide recognition and use in manipulation-intensive applications. Although the applications of haptic devices have several advantages over other methods for the development of consumer products, the VR systems also have some limitations; this is partly due to the complexity of interaction devices and haptic feedback processing. This paper presents a conceptual approach to haptic feedback for product design and consumer products usability evaluation.