Haptic. It’s more than just a 25 cent word.

I love words; as a guy who specializes in how people interact with technology, a big part of understanding these interactions is framed by the vocabularies that articulate what we’re doing, or how we’d do it. And it’s really fascinating to watch how words evolve to describe our reality, especially as the rate of change accelerates how our culture adapts, and what we’re doing. Some words are new, and become used in interesting colloquial ways as technologies are adopted and integrated with society. For example, it seems highly unlikely that people in the mid-1700s were saying that they focused on churning butter with a laser like intensity. Other words are old, but get dusted off as technology picks them up and finds new applications for them.

The word ‘Haptic’ is a great example of this. From the Greek haptesthai, meaning ‘to touch,’ it made it’s debut circa 1890 describing the psychology of the sense of touch. Over time, it has come to include all things touch related. And now, as mobile technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, it is starting to be used as a new marketing term to describe phones that respond not only visually and aurally, but with some kind of touch response as well.

For example, I get in trouble with my girlfriend. Because I’m in low-to-mid trouble, I can get out of it by being kind of cute. So I might MMS her a little heart icon, and as the heart beats, the phone vibrates. Now, she’s probably not thinking “awwww, he sent me a little haptic message that alerts my sense of touch!’, she is hopefully thinking ‘awww he’s thinking about me and this is cute!’ (Disclaimer: I don’t actually know if haptic MMSing will get a guy out of trouble, and don’t plan to test. Don’t take unnecessary risks and rely on technology to get out of them) Another example would be a blackberry vibrating as it rings. Not terribly sophisticated, and not terribly sexy, but you get the idea.

It’s not the behavior of the iPhone; while multitouch is a revolutionary feature, the user still poking an inert screen with no response. But what the iPhone has done is raise the awareness with the consumer of a truly portable touch screen, and raise the bar for Apple’s competitors. These two forces will combine to accelerate development of truly haptic interfaces. Many iPhone users lament the fact that their phone is tough to use, and would prefer a more sophisticated typing experience. It’s certainly an area where competitors can hope to compete with the incredible design of the device, through creating an interface that actually reacts to the user pressing on the keyboard.

Enter Nokia. After more than 10 years of development, they have introduced a prototype device that makes touching a screen feel like clicking a keyboard. The N770 internet tablet provides the user with a true sensory experience, complete with downward movement, resistance, clicking, and an upward movement. It makes typing feel “incredibly responsive” and simplifies the task greatly. Apparently, they will ship the technology with the S60 touchphone, as well, and are working on haptic interactions for scrolling and painting applications.

When these applications reach the US market, and as the technology cascades down in cost and up in availability, terms like “haptic” will worm their way more and more into common usage. As the technology moves from the realm of research, to phone geeks, to mainstream, the word haptic will become more and more commonly used. While I don’t think it will capture the public imagination like the acronym LASER did in the past, it will become a feature that people expect, and marketing touts, until it’s taken for granted as a feature set on future devices. And hopefully, by that time, there will be a reliable technology that gets guys out of trouble – sort of the electronic equivalent of roses and chocolate. Lord knows I’m waiting for that one.