EMS icons: Conveying information by analogy to enhance communication through electrical muscle stimulation

Abstract

Copyright © 2017 ACM. Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) has recently received an increased amount of attention from the HCI community. It has been used to remote control users for navigation and instrument playing, but also as a method to convey haptic feedback in VR, for example. As EMS devices become commercially available and application research continues, we explore EMS as a modality to convey information through actuation and as a means to induce and communicate emotions and moods. In this position paper, we present the results from two focus groups on using EMS for interpersonal communication as a way to send and receive emoticons through electrical stimulation. We argue that so-cal..