Tangible Cooperative Gestures: Improving Control and Initiative in Digital Photo Sharing

• Published in: Machines (Basel) Vol. 3; no. 4; pp. 268 - 295
• Main Authors: Hoven, Elise, van Bergen, Tom
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 01-12-2015
• Subjects: human-computer interaction; interaction design; prototype evaluation; storytelling; tangible gesture interaction; user-centered design
• ISSN: 2075-1702; 2075-1702
• DOI: 10.3390/machines3040268

This paper focuses on co-present digital photo sharing on a notebook and investigates how this could be supported. While analyzing the current digital photo sharing situation we noticed that there was a high threshold for visitors to take control of the personal computer of the photo owner, resulting in inequity of participation. It was assumed that visitors would have the opportunity to interact with the notebook more freely if this threshold was lowered by distributing the user interface and creating a more public, instead of personal, interaction space. This, in turn, could make them feel more involved and in control during a session, creating a more enjoyable experience. To test these assumptions a design prototype was created that stimulates participants to use tangible artifacts for cooperative gestures, a promising direction for the future of HCI. The situation with the cooperative gestures was compared with the regular digital photo sharing situation, which makes use of a keyboard. In dyads, visitors felt more involved and in control in the design prototype cooperative gestures condition (especially during storytelling), resulting in a more enjoyable digital photo sharing experience.