Unitouch Studio
Designing and developing a haptic creation tool
One of my main functions at Actronika was to create a tool that allowed the creation of haptic feedback using Actronika’s software (Unitouch SDK) and hardware (Skinetic and HSD).
The challenge was to create something that never existed before: a haptic effect creation tool.
Activities
Designing a tool to create haptic feedback using Actronika’s tools and products
Collaborating with SDK developers to define representations of graphical operations for editing haptic effects
Understanding haptic designers’ workflows to build a tool tailored to their needs
Developing and maintaining a haptic feedback creation tool
Roles
UX researcher
UI/UX designer
Full-stack developer
Tools
Adobe XD
Adobe Illustrator
Typescript
Svelte
Rust
GitLab
Challenge
Actronika was transitioning from being a company that integrated haptic feedback for non-recurring engineering projects to a company with flagship products that allowed developers to create rich and personalized haptic feedback.
Actronika already had the SDK for integrating haptic feedback programmatically, an extensive library of effects, and the devices for eliciting haptic feedback.
However, Actronika’s clients and its own workforce required a tool that allowed the creation of personalized haptic effects.
But… how to design a tool for creating haptic feedback?
Spatialization
Actronika needed a solution for creating haptic effects. However, one of the main features of the haptic feedback provided by Actronika’s products was spatialization. This means that the haptic effects could be distributed spatially through several points in a given time.
The challenge of creating Unitouch Studio was quite complex. There was a need for a tool that allowed “animating” haptic effects.
Basically, there was a need for a haptic spatializer and sequencer.
User research
I conducted in-depth user interviews with different profiles that could use Unitouch Studio. Ranging from mechanical engineers to audio designers, the idea was to create a tool easy to use and understand for people that were looking for design haptic effects.
I worked in depth with Actronika’s product manager and R&D director to evaluate the needs of users and create user personas to identify the user profiles and their possible behaviors.
After Unitouch Studio’s first release, users and clients’ feedback was constantly integrated to enhance the application’s usability and to lighten the different workflows and actions to create haptic effects.
UI/UX design
Once the different users’ profiles and actions were defined. The next step was to create a user interface.
Since we were developing a software that didn’t have an equivalent used in the industry, I had to consider the integration of different existing software solutions and their workflows.
Unitouch Studio interface combined the UI/UX workflow of an animation tool, using keyframes to define the different spatialization configurations for the Skinetic vest.
Additionally, Unitouch Studio behaved like a digital audio workspace (DAW), allowing multi-track sequencing, automation, haptic clip edition, and track mixing.
Development and maintenance
I had to take on the task of developing and maintaining Unitouch Studio. I learned web development tools and languages such as TypeScript and Svelte, as well as Rust for backend programming.
I also became familiar with the application's deployment process and worked more closely with the development team to integrate new functionalities.
In the end, I managed to create an application from scratch: starting from interviews and UI sketches, then moving on to wireframes, functional mock-ups, and finally programming it, even fixing some CI/CD issues along the way.
