Alchemy: Dynamic gesture hinting for mobile devices
Paper in proceeding, 2011

Users of smartphones and other mobile gesture interfaces are often left to explore possible interactions in the interface by themselves; there is currently no generic way to indicate which gestures can be made where. This is problematic. Thus, we propose gesture hinting as a means to deal with this: it serves as a combination of static hinting, dynamic visual hinting and cursor hinting, showing users which gestures are currently available. In short we propose having a set of symbols, one for each possible gesture, which can be combined into gesture hints describing how the user can interact with the part of the interface she or he is currently pointing at. As a proof of concept we have developed Alchemy, a gesture hinting application running on iOS, just to verify that it is possible to implement gesture hinting. As a result of this design process we discuss issues related to gesture hinting in general and Alchemy in particular; suggest possible solutions; and also point out further issues that need to be taken into account when applying gesture hinting, e.g. temporal effects and gestures for more than two fingers.

interaction design

Alchemy

mobile gesture interfaces

gesture hinting

smartphones

gestures

mobile devices

Author

Sus Lundgren

Chalmers, Applied Information Technology (Chalmers), Interaction design

Martin Hjulström

Chalmers, Applied Information Technology (Chalmers), Interaction design

Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, MindTrek 2011, Tampere, 28 - 30 September 2011

53-60
978-145030816-8 (ISBN)

Subject Categories

Computer and Information Science

DOI

10.1145/2181037.2181047

ISBN

978-145030816-8

More information

Latest update

11/5/2018