Gestural Interfaces to Support the Sketching Activities of Designers

The several loops characterizing the design process used to slow down the development of new projects. Since the 70s, the design process has changed due to the new technologies and tools related to Computer-Aided Design software and Virtual Reality applications that make almost the whole process digital. However, the concept phase of the design process is still based on traditional approaches, while digital tools are poor exploited. In this phase, designers need tools that allow them to rapidly save and freeze their ideas, such as sketching on paper, which is not integrated in the digital-based process. The paper presents a new gestural interface to give designers more support by introducing an effective device for 3D modelling to improve and speed up the conceptual design process. We designed a set of gestures to allow people from different background to 3D model their ideas in a natural way. A testing session with 17 participants allowed us to verify if the proposed interaction was intuitive or not. At the end of the tests, all participants succeeded in the 3D modelling of a simple shape (a column) by only using air gestures in a relatively short amount of time exactly how they expected it to be built, confirming the proposed interaction.

Exploring 4D Image Sets Of Early Heart Development Using Gesture And An Immersive, Spatial Operating Environment

Scientists today can collect more data than they can perceive using traditional visualization methods. New technologies and sensors allow researchers to gather dynamic, complex multi-dimensional data sets---all of which must be carefully studied to reveal their hidden patterns and narratives. The authors have utilized an immersive platform to design a new visualization for real-time, intuitive, spatial manipulations of time-based volumetric data sets via a wand-based gestural interface. The resulting work resolves microscopic tissue structures at a human scale in a room-based pixel space, facilitating research, discovery, and in-person teaching and collaboration.

Design of an ergonomic gestural interface for professional road cycling

BACKGROUND: Connected bike computers can support professional cyclists in achieving better performances but interacting with them requires taking their hands off the handlebar compromising focus and safety. OBJECTIVE: This research aims at exploring the design of an ergonomic interface based on micro-gestures that can allow cyclists to interact with a device while holding the handlebar. METHODS: Three different studies were conducted with seven professional cyclists adopting the gesture-elicitation technique. One study aimed at eliciting free micro-gestures; a second to evaluate gestures recognizable with a smart glove; the last focused on the gestures recognized through an interactive armband. RESULTS: The analysis of the micro-gestures elicited during these studies allowed producing a first set of guidelines to design gestural interfaces for drop-bars (a specific type of handlebar for road bikes). These guidelines suggest which fingers to use and how to design their movement in order to provide an ergonomic interface. It also introduces the principle of symmetry for the attribution of symbols to symmetric referents. Finally, it provides suggestions on the design of the interactive drop-bar. CONCLUSIONS: The guidelines provided in this paper can support the design of gestural interfaces for professional cyclists that can enhance performance and increase safety.

User interface for in-vehicle systems with on-wheel finger spreading gestures and head-up displays

Interacting with an in-vehicle system through a central console is known to induce visual and biomechanical distractions, thereby delaying the danger recognition and response times of the driver and significantly increasing the risk of an accident. To address this problem, various hand gestures have been developed. Although such gestures can reduce visual demand, they are limited in number, lack passive feedback, and can be vague and imprecise, difficult to understand and remember, and culture-bound. To overcome these limitations, we developed a novel on-wheel finger spreading gestural interface combined with a head-up display (HUD) allowing the user to choose a menu displayed in the HUD with a gesture. This interface displays audio and air conditioning functions on the central console of a HUD and enables their control using a specific number of fingers while keeping both hands on the steering wheel. We compared the effectiveness of the newly proposed hybrid interface against a traditional tactile interface for a central console using objective measurements and subjective evaluations regarding both the vehicle and driver behaviour. A total of 32 subjects were recruited to conduct experiments on a driving simulator equipped with the proposed interface under various scenarios. The results showed that the proposed interface was approximately 20% faster in emergency response than the traditional interface, whereas its performance in maintaining vehicle speed and lane was not significantly different from that of the traditional one.

Challenges of Developing a Mobile Game for Children with Down Syndrome to Test Gestural Interface

After a literature review published by Nascimento et. al. (2017), the research team noticed the lack of studies focused on game controllers’ accessibility during use by children with Down syndrome. In view of that, this research describes a mobile game development and its usability analyses, which were created to evaluate the accessibility of touchscreen gestural interfaces. The methodology was organized into three steps: bibliographic research and the definition of the project guidelines, the game development, and its evaluation. The guidelines used were based on a study made by Nascimento et. al. (2019) of the impairments that children can have, their game preferences found on Prena’s article (2014), games accessibility guidelines for people with intellectual deficiency from the Includification Book (2012), a manual of touchscreen gestural interfaces from Android and iOS and a game development framework from Schuytema (2008). Then, for the usability analyses, the team decided to first submit the game to a group of experts in order to make some improvements before submitting it to the audience. In this way, two evaluations were done, a heuristic test with usability specialists and a cognitive walkthrough with health professionals. The list of heuristics used on the tests was created by a mash up of the Breyer evaluation (2008) and the recommendations of the Able Games Association (2012) and the cognitive one followed the Preece, Sharp and Rogers (2007) recommendations. The results found reveal some challenges in the field and adjustments, mainly in the narrative, game goals and interface feedback, that should be addressed as soon as possible.

Digital play in young children’s numeracy learning

Advances in technology have seen a proliferation of touch-screen interfaces available to young children. These screens have changed the way in which young children engage with digital technology; with increased exposure and use, it raises debates about the suitability of integrating digital technology within early childhood settings. There are limited empirical studies that investigate the appropriateness of emergent digital technology within the field of early childhood. Based upon the TPACK model, this timely paper thus discussed the Digital Play Model (Numeracy) and reported on a project investigating the integration of digital technologies into childcare settings. In particular, the focus of this paper was to report on the use of games using a gestural interface device have on 3- to 4-year-old children’s ability to learn numeracy concepts. This study found that young children’s numeracy learning outcomes were improved. This paper also provided empirical evidence of the use of Apps via iPad technologies on young children’s numeracy learning, with an implication to a need for a pedagogical model for successful integration of digital technology within early childhood settings.