Once we settled on the equipment and the general approach, we then developed the detailed protocol and piloted it in the US and Germany. After this pilot, the study protocol was updated with lessons learned and best practices and provided to the remaining countries.
As mentioned in the Gesture Research – Protocol (Part 1: Equipment) blog, participants were asked to define their own gesture for 28 actions. The 28 actions were:
- Multiselect
- Move object
- Delete
- Scroll down
- Scroll up
- Continuous scroll
- Stop scroll
- Open menu
- Open folder
- Closer folder
- Accept/Verify
- Home
- Help
- Zoom in
- Zoom out
- Magnify
- Rotate Image
- Pitch
- Save
- Minimize
- Back
- Forward
- Cut
- Paste
- Undo
- Redo
- Copy
These actions were described pictorially by showing participants a “before” screen and an “after” screen.
Figure 1. The Before screen and After screen for the multiselect gesture
The “before” screen was placed in the gesture rig we created. Participants were asked to dip their fingers in charcoal and make the gesture that would result in the “after” screen. The charcoal left a trace that was recorded by the webcam
Figure 2. The gesture rig
40 people participated in this research from 8 different countries. 20 of the participants were experienced with multitouch interfaces, and 20 of the participants were not experienced with them. The 8 countries were:
- China
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- India
- Spain
- UK
In addition to 40 people from each of these countries, 20 people from Italy participated.
Dan is the Director of Human Factors & Research at HumanCentric in the United States. Dan received his Ph.D. in Human Factors in 1994 and has been designing and evaluating user interfaces for a variety of companies since then. When Dan is not studying gestures for work, he is the receipient of them from his 2 children. 