Graded control keeps critical haptics while silencing decorative ones

What it is

Graded control lets users keep critical haptics and silence decorative ones. A global switch is binary: keep everything or lose everything. Grading groups haptics by meaning—system cues, social notifications, action feedback—so users can shut off only the class that disturbs them most.

Why it happens

Grading works because tolerance varies sharply by class: action-confirmation feedback is usually welcomed, social notifications become interference at certain times, and purely decorative feedback is nearly always expendable. Grading means "reduce noise" no longer requires trading away critical information, which markedly lowers the rate of wholesale muting. Its effectiveness depends on whether the grouping matches users' mental model—by source usually reads better than by technical module.

Studying it

Compare behavior under a global switch and under graded control: log the distribution of per-category disabling, overall mute rate, and miss rate on critical events. Variables include category count and basis, default states, and how the consequence is explained. Include re-enable rate, since users may switch off for a situation and return. Control category count, since too many makes choosing a burden itself.

Where it stops holding

With too many categories users give up adjusting and fall back to the global switch, defeating the grading. If the grouping contradicts user understanding—lumping safety and social alerts together—users disable important classes by mistake. Where a haptic class has no functional substitute, making it muteable creates information loss and needs either an explicit warning or constrained mutability.

Applying it

• Group by meaning the user recognizes rather than by implementation module.
• For each category, state what is lost when it is off and whether a substitute channel exists.
• Keep category count small so configuring is not a repeated tradeoff.
• Verification: observe the disable distribution and overall mute rate; widespread reliance on the global switch or mis-disabling of critical classes means the grouping needs revision.

Related

• Within the group: D3.12.1 Haptics need a global off switch rather than forced always-on · D3.12.4 Information carried by haptics must move to another channel when haptics are off
• Adjacent: D2.11.1 Users need to control sound by category rather than all-or-nothing · D3.08.3 The haptic budget should follow event importance
• Search terms: graded haptics · category control · critical versus decorative