"But Wait, There's More!" - A Deeper Look into Gestures on Touch Interfaces

Arleth, Liv ; Damkjær, Emilie Lind

4. term

Medialogy, Master

2019

2019-08-04

16 pages

The language used in interaction design is affected by the wide array of academic backgrounds of interaction designers. Therefore one word may have several meanings, which can be confusing when conducting research in this field. In this paper, we define three levels of interaction: macro-, micro- and nanointeractions, the latter of which is the focus of this study. We then use Buxton's three state model to break down common gestures on touch interfaces into nanointeractions, thereby identifying where in the process of a gesture signifiers for said gesture can appear. This is useful when overloading controls on an interface. We conducted an experiment to determine whether the temporal placement of a signifier made any difference for the discoverability of an affordance, in this case double tap and long tap. To test this, we developed an application which we exposed to 64 test participants, and logged their every gesture. A questionnaire was also administered after each trial concerning the participants' own experience with the app. Kruskal-Wallis tests were performed on the data with no significant results. No clear tendencies were found regarding whether the temporal placement of the signifier affected the discoverability of the chosen affordances. However, we believe the concept of nanointeractions to be a valuable contribution to the field of interaction design in and of itself.

HCI ; Interaktionsdesign ; Affordance

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