Extended reality (XR), encompassing both augmented and virtual reality, promises to fundamentally reshape how we experience our world by altering, augmenting, or even replacing our perception of reality. XR headsets represent a rapidly growing category of computing devices that, over the past half-century, have achieved impressive advances in audio-visual immersion. However, modern day XR interactions remain largely devoid of appropriately expressive tactile sensations. Even today's most advanced mainstream consumer systems still rely primarily on vibrotactile haptic actuators in handheld controllers, inherently limiting haptic stimuli to clicks and buzzes — an exceedingly limited range of expressivity with which to represent the rich tactile world.

Realizing the holistic promise of XR requires considering the sense of touch as foundational as that of audio and vision, meaning that full-body haptic immersion is just as important as full audio-visual immersion. In this thesis, I introduce an immersion-practicality tradeoff model to frame critical design considerations in haptics research. This model proposes these two competing objectives to underscore the inherent tension between providing rich sensory feedback (often costly, bulky, or complicated), while maintaining consumer feasibility and usability ( low cost, lightweight, easy to set up, etc.). Guided by this framework, I identify and build Pareto-efficient haptic systems aligned with the human sensorimotor system. I present five published projects that embody this design approach through tactile and kinesthetic feedback appropriately correlated to different regions of the body. Together, these systems advance the vision of practical, immersive, full-body haptics.