HapPalm : Providing Rich Spatio-Temporal Vibrotactile Feedback on the Palm for Laptop Gaming

While many modern gaming environments provide haptic feedback, laptop keyboard gaming remains largely without rich tactile interaction, despite a rapidly growing audience. In this paper, we propose the HapPalm interface, a novel laptop interface concept that delivers rich spatio-temporal vibrotactile feedback through the palmrest area, allowing players to feel game events with their palms. Our prototype uses dual 4×6 linear resonant actuator arrays. To render various game events with the HapPalm interface, our first study aims to create a haptic pattern dataset. Iterative design workshops identified 11 haptic pattern templates, of which our second study validated that they convincingly convey diverse game events. Our final study embedded these patterns into a custom game, showing that spatial haptics significantly improved fun, immersion, realism, and presence compared to non-spatial or no-haptic conditions. HapPalm interface demonstrates that palmrest-based haptics can enrich keyboard-only laptop gaming, providing an expressive and immersive tactile channel for future laptop interfaces.