Brave New GES World:A Systematic Literature Review of Gestures and Referents in Gesture Elicitation Studies

How to determine highly effective and intuitive gesture sets for interactive systems tailored to end users’ preferences? A substantial body of knowledge is available on this topic, among which gesture elicitation studies stand out distinctively. In these studies, end users are invited to propose gestures for specific referents, which are the functions to control for an interactive system. The vast majority of gesture elicitation studies conclude with a consensus gesture set identified following a process of consensus or agreement analysis. However, the information about specific gesture sets determined for specific applications is scattered across a wide landscape of disconnected scientific publications, which poses challenges to researchers and practitioners to effectively harness this body of knowledge. To address this challenge, we conducted a systematic literature review and examined a corpus of N=267 studies encompassing a total of 187, 265 gestures elicited from 6, 659 participants for 4, 106 referents. To understand similarities in users’ gesture preferences within this extensive dataset, we analyzed a sample of 2, 304 gestures extracted from the studies identified in our literature review. Our approach consisted of (i) identifying the context of use represented by end users, devices, platforms, and gesture sensing technology, (ii) categorizing the referents, (iii) classifying the gestures elicited for those referents, and (iv) cataloging the gestures based on their representation and implementation modalities. Drawing from the findings of this review, we propose guidelines for conducting future end-user gesture elicitation studies

An investigation of mid-air gesture interaction for older adults

Older adults (60+) face natural and gradual decline in cognitive, sensory and motor functions that are often the reason for the difficulties that older users come up against when interacting with computers. For that reason, the investigation and design of age-inclusive input methods for computer interaction is much needed and relevant due to an ageing population. The advances of motion sensing technologies and mid-air gesture interaction reinvented how individuals can interact with computer interfaces and this modality of input method is often deemed as a more “natural” and “intuitive” than using purely traditional input devices such mouse interaction. Although explored in gaming and entertainment, the suitability of mid-air gesture interaction for older users in particular is still little known. The purpose of this research is to investigate the potential of mid-air gesture interaction to facilitate computer use for older users, and to address the challenges that older adults may face when interacting with gestures in mid-air. This doctoral research is presented as a collection of papers that, together, develop the topic of ageing and computer interaction through mid-air gestures. The initial point for this research was to establish how older users differ from younger users and focus on the challenges faced by older adults when interacting with mid-air gesture interaction. Once these challenges were identified, this work aimed to explore a series of usability challenges and opportunities to further develop age-inclusive interfaces based on mid-air gesture interaction. Through a series of empirical studies, this research intends to provide recommendations for designing mid-air gesture interaction that better take into consideration the needs and skills of the older population and aims to contribute to the advance of age-friendly interfaces

Improving usability of smart television application’s search screen

Televisions are a common household item and today most of them are smart televisions. Smart televisions have many similarities with older televisions such as remote controllers and a big screen while differences are time boundlessness and watching habits. One habit that comes from smart television is the common usage of search. Search is essential to find a specific title from a service. That is why it impacts the user experience of a smart television application. The aim of this research is to gain understanding how people use the search in smart television applications to help develop the applications more usable. This research focuses on the usability and experiences of users, and it is con-ducted by usability testing with semi-structured interviews. Participants for this study were five people (3 male, 2 female) between ages 26–41. The gained data was transcribed and then analysed with a software called ATLAS.ti by coding the most relevant points out of data. Based on the methods presented before, a lot of interesting points rose out of the data. Results did point out many different details that do affect the usability of a search. The goal was to find out which keyboard works best on-screen and based on the results, a square shaped alphabetical keyboard would work best with the numbers in a separate screen. It was found out that users have a need for Scandinavian letters and the possibility to move through edges of the screen. It was also found out that users expect the search to happen immediately while writing their search query. In addition, the search results should be shown as pictures to visualise the search. In the future it Yleisradio could deploy the suggested search screen in their service. If one wanted to ensure reliability of current research, further research could be done with a wider sampling of user base.Televisiot ovat yleinen esine kotitalouksissa ja nykyään suurin osa näistä laitteista on älytelevisioita. Älytelevisioissa on monia yhteneväisyyksiä vanhempien televisioiden kanssa, kuten kaukosäätimet ja näyttöjen suuri koko, kun taas eroavaisuuksia ovat aikasidonnaisuuden puuttuminen ja katselutottumukset. Yksi älytelevisiosta johtuva tottumus on yleinen haun käyttö. Haku on välttämätön funktio, kun käyttäjä haluaa löytää jonkin tietyn nimikkeen palvelusta. Tästä johtuen haku vaikuttaa suuresti käyttäjäkokemukseen älytelevisiosovelluksessa. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on hankkia ymmärrystä siitä, miten ihmiset käyttävät hakua älytelevisiosovelluksissa, jotta näitä sovelluksia voitaisiin kehittää paremmiksi. Tutkimuksen painopiste oli käytettävyydessä ja tutkimusmetodina käytettiin käytettävyystestausta puolistrukturoidulla haastattelulla. Tutkimukseen osallistui viisi ihmistä (3 miestä, 2 naista) ikäväliltä 26–41. Testeistä kerätty data litteroitiin ja analyysi tehtiin ATLAS.ti ohjelmiston avulla indeksoimalla tärkeimmät informaatiopisteet datasta. Edellä kuvailtujen metodien avulla kerättiin paljon informaatiota käytettävyydestä. Tulokset kuvailevat useita yksityiskohtia, jotka vaikuttavat haun käytettävyyteen. Tavoitteena oli löytää, minkälainen näppäimistö toimii parhaiten näytöllä ja tuloksien perusteella neliön muotoinen aakkosjärjestetty näppäimistö toimisi parhaiten tähän tarkoitukseen. Käyttäjien toiveena oli, että numerot olisivat erillisellä näytöllä. Tuloksista huomattiin käyttäjillä olevan tarve käyttää ääkkösiä ja toiveena oli myös mahdollisuus kulkea näytön reunojen lävitse. Käyttäjät myös halusivat haun tapahtuvan välittömästi, kun he alkavat kirjoittaa hakusanaa. Hakutuloksien toivotaan tulevan näytölle kuvina, jotta pystytään visualisoimaan haku. Tulevaisuudessa Yleisradio voisi ottaa käyttöön ehdotetun hakunäytön palvelussaan ja mikäli haluttaisiin varmistaa tulosten luotettavuus, voitaisiin tehdä jatkotutkimusta suuremmalla käyttäjäotannalla

Gesture Elicitation and Usability Testing for an Armband Interacting with Netflix and Spotify

Controlling home entertainment devices, like music and video, via an armband could free the user from using remote controls, but assessing their overall usability with mid-air and micro-gestures still represents an open research question today. For this purpose, this paper reports on results gained by jointly conducting and comparing two studies involving participants using a Thalmic Myo armband to control a NetFlix SmartTV and Spotify: (1) a gesture elicitation study to explore a richer set of user-defined gestures, to measure their effectiveness and the user subjective satisfaction of gesture interaction; (2) a System Usability Scale (SUS) to assess the overall usability of this setup and the subjective satisfaction for user-defined gestures