Meaningful gestures for human computer interaction: beyond hand postures

In the development of gestural interfaces for product design, the perceptual-motor skills of the designer and the expressive, creative process of design need to be supported. To accomplish this goal, we propose a different approach than currently used in research on gestures. We propose that meaning is central to the definition of "gesture" and discuss a new categorisation for gestures in which gestures refer (simultaneously) to four aspects, namely space, pathic information, symbols and emotion. This definition and categorisation also ask for a different type of experimentation. We show with two experiments how gestural human-computer interaction for product design can be studied. By having a trained artist mimic a gestural interface for design, we found that an accurate interpretation of the created product can be made, even when designers are allowed full freedom in their gestures. We find that task-specific intuitive human-computer interaction using gestures is feasible, although extensive research is necessary and ongoing.