Designing Gestural Interfaces

TOWARD STANDARDS

Imagine this scenario: you walk into a darkened room. You know there is a light fixture there because you can see it, but there is no wall switch. An icon on the doorframe indicates that it is a gestural interface, but it gives no clue what the required gesture is. You wave your arms frantically to trigger the sensor you know must be there: nothing. Hop up and down: nothing. Clap your hands: nothing. Annoyed, you wonder who designed this room. Is it a Microsoft Rume or an Apple iRoom or a Sony eVironment? For one, you have to wave a hand; for the other, point to the light; for the third, pretend to flip a light switch. Which one is it???

As this, and countless imaginable future scenarios, demonstrates, we probably will need some standards for interactive gestures.

We have an opportunity in front of us now, like the Doug Engelbarts and Larry Teslers and Bill Verplanks of the 1960s and 1970s did, to define the interaction paradigms for the next several decades (at least) in the form of gestural and touch interactions. We need to figure out which common gestures could work across a variety of devices and environments. It's time to step up and start making an effort to define and document a common set of movements and motions that could be used for initiating actions across a variety of platforms. We need to help create this shift in input devices, not just follow along behind the technology. And if we wait, well, we'll simply find individual companies (Apple, Microsoft, ...