Our work-in-progress submission about the early stages of the design of the TaSST (Tactile Sleeve for Social Touch), has been accepted for publication at the Seventh International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI’13). Here is the abstract:

In this paper we present the concept and initial design stages of the TaSST (Tactile Sleeve for Social Touch). The TaSST consists of a soft pressure-sensitive input layer, and an output layer containing vibration motors. A touch to ones own sleeve, is felt as a vibration on the sleeve of another person. The idea behind the TaSST is to enable two people to communicate different types of touch over a distance. We will outline the design process of the TaSST, describe some initial results from a user study, and discuss applications of the TaSST.