Surface Textures for Affective Communication

AFTEX (EP/D060079/1)

AFTEX is a EPSRC funded three-year project (grant number: EP/D060079/1). The project aims to improve understanding of human-product fingertip affective interactions to a level that, within the period of the project, will allow surfaces to be specified and manufactured for intended tactile affect and in a way that will also advance measurement methods in this area.

In order to be successful, today consumer products must make an emotional impact on their customers alongside satisfying functional and ergonomic demands. An emerging area of affective engineering and design seeks to integrate established mechanical engineering topics e.g. mechanics, tribology and design, with human factors, life sciences and the arts, and to develop methods and tools that support the delivery of improved products with respect to emotional content.

This particular project looks into relationships between products’ physical and geometrical properties and their effects on a person’s subjective perception of the products. In particular it is about the products surface properties relevant to a person’s touch senses and relationships between those (roughness, compliance, thermal contact resistance properties) and a person’s touch perceptions. Our example products will be selected from the context of consumer products.