A touchscreen that you can feel is coming. Buttons and shapes can rise under your fingers, making screens easier to use and more interactive.
Touchscreens have dominated user interfaces for more than a decade because they are intuitive and versatile, but they have a major flaw. They offer no tactile feedback. This makes the experience feel hollow compared to traditional physical controls, forcing users to constantly look at the screen, especially when typing or operating controls while driving.
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara are working to change that. They have developed a new type of touchscreen that can morph its shape on demand, letting users feel what they see. Each individually-addressable pixel can rise up to a millimeter on command, giving touchscreens a sense of physicality they previously lacked.
The researchers built a system based on a simple but clever idea: using light as both the power source and the control signal for each tactile pixel. They made thin display surfaces with arrays of “optotactile” pixels—tiny air-filled cavities covered by a flexible membrane and containing a suspended graphite film. When a brief pulse from a low-power laser hits the graphite, it heats up, the trapped air expands, and the membrane bulges outward to form a noticeable bump.
This design avoids a major challenge in tactile displays like wiring. Each pixel only needs a targeted light pulse to activate, so the surface has no embedded electronics. A scanning laser sweeps the display, activating pixels one by one at high speed, similar to an old CRT TV. This happens quickly enough to produce continuous, visible, and touchable animations. Early prototypes have over 1,500 independently controllable pixels, a density higher than most existing tactile displays.
User tests show the approach works well. Participants could locate raised pixels with millimeter precision, follow moving shapes, and recognize complex patterns. This demonstrates a wide expressive range, from simple cues to detailed touch-based graphics.
The team sees potential applications in automotive touchscreens that feel like mechanical switches, e-readers with tactile illustrations, and large-scale installations combining physical and digital interaction. While still in early stages, this work could bring interfaces that not only look dynamic but also feel alive.
