In this study, we developed a new type of smartwatch, the HaptiWatch, which has notification functions that are not present in analog watches that lack a high‐resolution display. The HaptiWatch also has a priority‐filtering function that distinguishes notifications by their importance. Notification information is encoded as light and haptic pulses which allow users to recognize the type and importance of the notification without having to see the watch. To evaluate the user experience (UX) of the HaptiWatch's new notification system, a comparative study was conducted together with the notification system of the Samsung Galaxy Gear S3 Frontier, a well‐known smartwatch. The UX evaluation results indicate that the notification system of the HaptiWatch provides an experience that is comparable to that of the Gear S3.

As smartwatches gain popularity in the marketplace, various smartwatch context studies have been conducted. The use of smartwatches can be divided into situations with and without constraint both physically and psychologically. Notably, in constrained situations, if the user wants to check the information received in the smartwatch visually, a high cognitive load is involved. To solve this problem, we propose a method to encode and transmit information from the smartwatch with haptic pulses. First, we determine the informational category of the smartwatch and generate various haptic pulses. Next, we propose and verify a haptic pulse set that can represent the informational category of the smartwatch. Using the proposed haptic pulse set, users can receive smartwatch information in constraint situations. The use of encoded haptic pulses needs to be considered to provide information effectively from the smartwatch to the wearer.

With the advent of touchscreen-based smart devices, several studies on the usability of the stylus, a typical touchscreen input method, have been conducted. However, usability studies that simply focus on completing tasks are not suitable for investigating the stylus in various use contexts and with qualitative values. In other words, the context from the user's point of view should be investigated. Therefore this study aims to provide usability directions for improving the stylus system by structurally investigating recent stylus-related studies. After examining stylus-related studies between 2004 to 2017, they were mainly classified into two cases: those considering the use of the stylus in various environments, and those focused on developing the stylus by applying new sensory feedback to increase usability. By systematically analysing and classifying each study, unique features of the stylus were identified and examples of stylus usage in certain domains were summarised. Furthermore, to improve usability, sensory feedback methods that could be applied to the stylus were established. In conclusion, this study derived sensory feedback that would be suitable for the use context of styluses, and proposed guidelines to improve the usability of stylus systems through sensory feedback.