Evaluating ‘Gesture Interaction’ requirements of mobile applications for deaf users: Discovering the needs of the hearing-impiared in using touchscreen gestures

The popularity of smartphone have propelled the use of gestures via touchscreen on mobile devices. This helps improve accessibility for the deaf users. However, there is lack of studies to understand the extent to which ‘Gesture Interaction’ is usable to the deaf community. In a previous study, a ‘gesture-specific’ heuristics model was developed for normal users. The objective of this study is to verify the ‘Gesture-Specific Heuristics’ (GSH) evaluation model with deaf users. This is achieved by performing usability testing with deaf users using a social media mobile application and measuring their feedback using satisfaction surveys. The study is facilitated by an open system hosted on the cloud. After analyzing the satisfaction survey results, it was found that the ‘gesture-specific’ heuristics model adhered to ergonomics, social acceptability, learnability, cognitive workload, and adaptability, which when combined helps improve accessibility for deaf users.