Haptics

How Haptic Feedback Makes Touchscreens Feel Responsive

Tap a key on a touchscreen keyboard and you may feel a tiny pulse even though the glass itself never moves like a physical key. Drag a control into place and the phone may produce a brief click-like sensation. These responses are examples of haptic feedback: physical feedback generated by a device to accompany an action or event. Haptics can make a touchscreen feel more responsive because they give your sense of touch another signal that something happened. The screen still detects the touch electronically, and software still decides what the touch means. The vibration is feedback after or alongside that process, not the mechanism that detects your finger.