Digital vibrons: understanding users' perceptions of interacting with invisible, zero-weight matter

We investigate in this work users' perceptions of interacting with invisible, zero-weight digital matter for smart mobile scenarios. To this end, we introduce the concept of a digital vibron as vibrational manifestation of a digital object located outside its container device. We exemplify gesture-based interactions for digital vibrons and show how thinking about interactions in terms of digital vibrons can lead to new interactive experiences in the physical-digital space. We present the results of a user study that showed high scores of users' perceived experience, usability, and desirability, and we discuss users' preferences for vibration patterns to inform the design of vibrotactile feedback for digital vibrons. We hope that this work will inspire researchers and practitioners to further explore and develop digital vibrons to design localized vibrotactile feedback for digital objects outside their smart devices toward new interactive experiences in the physical-digital space.