HapEmoji: Enhancing Emotional Experiences in Remote Collaboration through Haptic Communication

Conventional remote collaboration relies primarily on visual and auditory communication, which may lead to insufficient immersive and embodied experience. This paper examines how integrating haptic feedback can enhance emotional engagement in remote interactions and explores design approaches for haptic systems tailored to remote collaboration contexts. We developed HapEmoji, a system featuring four emotion-based dynamic haptic patterns, enabling users to convey emotions during remote meetings through a wearable, flexible haptic interface. After two rounds of pilot studies refining the haptic pattern designs, we conducted a user study with 16 participants in a remote meeting context. The results show that the four haptic patterns were easily distinguishable, and participants reported that haptic feedback helped bridge emotional gaps between collaborators, encourage active participation and positive atmosphere, while facilitating transitions and maintaining engagement. Our findings suggest that haptic interfaces can strengthen emotional communication and have the potential to improve the efficiency of remote collaboration.