Exploring Visual Cues for Intuitive Communicability of Touch Gestures to Pre-kindergarten Children

Abstract

© ACM, 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM In Proceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (pp. 159-162). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2669485.2669523Pre-kindergarten children are becoming frequent users of multi-touch technology and, according to previous studies they are able to perform several multi-touch gestures successfully. However, they do not use these devices supervised at all times. Consequently, interactive applications for pre-kindergarteners need to convey their underlying design intent and interactive principles with respect to touch interaction. In this paper, we present and evaluate two approaches to communicate three different touch gestures (tap, drag and scale up) to pre-kindergarten users. Our results show, firstly, that it is possible to effectively communicate them using visual cues and, secondly, that an animated semiotic approach is better than an iconic one.Work supported by the MINECO (grant TIN2010-20488) and GVA VALi+d program (grant APOSTD/2013/013).Nácher Soler, VE.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Catalá Bolós, A. (2014). Exploring Visual Cues for Intuitive Communicability of Touch Gestures to Pre-kindergarten Children. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2669485.2669523SBaloian, N., Pino, J. A., and Vargas, R. Tablet gestures as a motivating factor for learning. In Proc. ChileCHI'13, (2013), 98--103.Hofmeester, K., and Wolfe, J. Self-revealing gestures: teaching new touch interactions in windows 8. In ACM CHI EA '12 (2012), 815--828Kähkönen, M. and Ovaska, S. Initial observations on children and online instructions. In Proc. IDC '06, (2006), 93.Lee, R. Gestures. http://gesturecons.com/.Levine, S.C., Huttenlocher, J., Taylor, A., and Langrock, A. Early sex differences in spatial skill. Developmental Psychology, 35, (1999) 940--949.McKnight, L. and Fitton, D. Touch-screen technology for children: Giving the Right Instructions and Getting the Right Responses. In Proc. IDC '10, ACM Press (2010), 238.Niemi, H. and Ovaska, S. Designing spoken instructions with preschool children. In Proc. IDC '07, (2007), 133.Prates, R.O., de Souza, C.S., and Barbosa, S.D.J. Methods and tools: a method for evaluating the communicability of user interfaces. Interactions 7, 1 (2000), 31--38.Rideout, V. Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America. Common Sense Media, 2011.Walter, R., Bailly, G. and Müller, J. StrikeAPose: Revealing Mid-Air Gestures on Public Displays. In Proc. ACM CHI'13 (2013), 841--850