A comparative study of user-defined handheld vs. freehand gestures for home entertainment environments

Abstract

Home entertainment systems have been continuously providing new functionalities to their users in a process in which they evolved from standalone electronic appliances to complex digital milieus superimposed on the home environment. Such complex entertainment environments are in need of appropriate interfaces with gestures standing as a viable option. However, designing gesture commands is a challenging task and today's designs do not always reflect users' natural gestures. For this reason, this work presents the results of a participatory study in which users were involved in the design and evaluation of gesture commands for 22 typical home entertainment tasks. This is the first study to deliver a comparison between user-defined gestures for two different capture technologies: using handheld devices to sense motion and employing freehand gestures and postures. Specifically, we found that: 1 consensus exists among participants in both scenarios; 2 when available, buttons are preferred to motion commands; 3 familiar point & click and drag & drop techniques are naturally reused for new environments; 4 one-hand gestures are preferred to bimanual gestures; 5 hand posture is important yet culture specific; and 6 body-referenced and parametrized gestures appeal to users. We report gesture sets for the handheld and freehand gesture scenarios in order to inform, assist, and inspire practitioners designing the gestural interfaces of our future home environments.