Feedback at your fingertips
Norman (2013) stresses that every action needs immediate feedback. Glass lacks the click of a physical key, and haptics fill that gap. Poupyrev and Maruyama (2003) showed early tactile interfaces for small screens; Brewster et al. (2007) found vibration feedback cut touch-keyboard errors; and Hoggan et al. (2008) showed tactile feedback brought typing close to physical keyboards even on a moving subway.
When to use it
Apple recommends standard patterns with fixed meanings such as success, warning, error and selection; Android favours crisp, short haptics over long buzzes. Use them at state changes, such as toggles, pull-to-refresh thresholds or long-press menus, to complete microinteractions. The web Vibration API exists but has limited support, so never rely on vibration alone.
Overuse and accessibility
Buzzing on every tap erases meaning and adds fatigue and battery drain. Respect users who disable haptics in system settings, and design vibration as a supplementary channel alongside visuals and sound: an extra cue for blind users, no burden for those who dislike it. That is the multi-sensory principle of web accessibility.
FAQ
- Should every button vibrate?
- No; use short haptics only for meaningful state changes.
- Can mobile websites use haptics?
- Partly, via the Vibration API, but support is limited so treat it as supplementary.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-27
References
- Brewster, S., Chohan, F., & Brown, L. (2007). Tactile feedback for mobile interactions. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 159–162). ACM. Shows vibration feedback reduced touchscreen typing errors.
- Hoggan, E., Brewster, S. A., & Johnston, J. (2008). Investigating the effectiveness of tactile feedback for mobile touchscreens. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1573–1582). ACM. Tactile feedback improved typing even on a moving subway.
- Poupyrev, I., & Maruyama, S. (2003). Tactile interfaces for small touch screens. In Proceedings of the 16th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (pp. 217–220). ACM. Early work applying tactile interfaces to small touch screens.
- Apple. (n.d.). Playing haptics. Human Interface Guidelines. Apple's standard haptic patterns for success, warning and selection.
- Android Developers. (n.d.). Haptics. Android Developers documentation. Android principles favouring crisp, short haptics across devices.
- Mozilla. (n.d.). Vibration API. MDN Web Docs. MDN on the web Vibration API and its limited browser support.
- Norman, D. A. (2013). The design of everyday things (Revised and expanded ed.). Basic Books. Classic explanation of the feedback principle.