Cross-Platform Haptic Design

Design haptics as semantic, multimodal feedback integrated with the interaction.

Read references/best-practices.md before proposing, implementing, or reviewing a haptic system.

Treat the reference as design guidance. Before implementation, verify current platform APIs and hardware capability requirements in the linked primary documentation; record the checked date and source when this affects the recommendation.

Workflow

1. Identify the target platforms, hardware, interaction, environment, repetition rate, and accessibility needs.
2. State what each proposed haptic communicates; remove effects with no clear user value.
3. Prefer a system-provided effect when its documented meaning matches the event.
4. Define shared semantic tokens before mapping them to platform-specific effects.
5. Coordinate visual, audio, and haptic onset, duration, intensity, rhythm, material character, and spatial origin.
6. Keep the vocabulary small, causal, consistent, restrained, optional, and understandable without haptics.
7. Prototype alternatives in the complete interaction, including rapid repetition and overlapping events.
8. Test on every supported physical device; do not approve haptics from a simulator, waveform, or audio approximation alone.
9. Document the chosen mapping, parameter range, cancellation behavior, fallback, and test status.