Investigation of Tactile Texture Simulation on Online Shopping Experience

With safety measures towards the current Covid-19 pandemic, many retails clothing stores have restricted on-site fittings and shifted their business online. Inability to touch on product evaluations shows an apparent limitation as compared to retail shopping especially when the object's material information is crucial like clothing. Haptic technologies show potential of bridging the gap between online shops and the shoppers by providing a sense of touch, yet little research has been done especially on the effect of the simulation of tactile texture on the shopping experience. In this study, we modified a mock-up e-commerce website by adding clothing products and enabling a mid-air haptic interface with Ultrahaptics Evaluation Kit (UHEV1). We developed texture sensations using Time Point Streaming (TSP) modulation for clothing products with different texture materials and a user study was carried out to investigate the tactile texture sensation on shoppers' experience in evaluating online products. Our results show that tactile texture sensation using multipoint mid-air haptic feedback improves online shopper's satisfaction on the product browsing experience. This study contributes to the improvement of general lifestyle of the society in terms of e-commerce experience and could expand its application to impact different sectors like education and different communities including the visually impaired.