Gestures and their implications

Dan Saffer of Kicker Studio presented a talk “Tap is the New Click” hosted by R/GA in New York City yesterday evening. He is on tour promoting his new book. Dan covered the basic usability and ergonomics issues regarding a gestural interfaces. It was a great multi-media overview that included the Apple iPhone and Nintendo Wii. Attendees expressed concerns about the potential problems with patenting gestural interfaces. In addition, some were worried about confusion and inconsistencies between proprietary solutions. There could be new user interface wars between competing products. One attendee joked about having to know what gesture to use for Apple vs. Microsoft. One could image having an Apple "iRoom" user interface and Microsoft zRoom" user interface.

Moreover, one could have some "Tower of Babel" as different gestures emerge for the same interactions. How does a gestural user interface deal with "gestural pollution?" At some point, the gestures can become too contrived and complex. Even with current simplistic gestures, Dan does not like calling these "natural" interfaces. There will be "pointing" issues as to what the user's intentions are. You can use a gesture to turn on something - but what is it that you want turned on? So you might have to say "lights" first along with a gesture. You can raise one arm to turn on one light and two arms to turn on all lights. As you can see, it can get a bit confusing... unless you develop some standards that everyone recognizes and implements.

When I spoke to Dan before his talk, I asked him about the Web 2.0 conference. He indicated that the vast majority of the talks were about software only solutions while it would be more interesting if there were more software/hardware combinations presented that involved user interface design that included physical design aspects interacting with software. When you think about it, the popular products are exactly that - iPhone, iPod, Blackberry, Tivo, and DVRs.

The next NYC IxDA event is the Second Annual Interaction Design Studio -- a hands-on workshop led by experts Liya Zheng and Jeanine Harriman of Liquidnet -- on Thursday evening, October 16, at Roundarch.