Digital Vibrons: Understanding Users' Perceptions of Interacting with Invisible, Zero-Weight Matter

We investigate in this work users´ perceptions of interactingwith invisible, zero-weight digital matter for smart mobile scenarios.To this end, we introduce the concept of a digital vibronas vibrational manifestation of a digital object located outsideits container device. We exemplify gesture-based interactionsand show how thinking interactions in terms of digital vibronsleads to new experiences in the mixed physical-digital space.We present results of a user study showing high scores onusers´ perceived experience. We also discuss the results of anelicitation study for collecting users´ preferences for vibrationpatterns to inform design of vibrotactile feedback for digitalvibrons. We hope that our results on this first exploration ofdigital vibrons will inspire researchers and practitioners tofurther develop our concept and design localized vibrotactilefeedback for digital objects outside their smart devices towardnew interactive experiences in the physical-digital space.