Gestures are essentially movements made with our bodies. Gesturing is a rich and often subtle mode of communication that we all employ, often without even realizing it. From a profane gesture given in traffic to a slouch in our posture, gestures are used to convey emotion, confirmation & negation, or very specific and important messages (think of a crossing guard).

Though it seems obvious, it is important to remember that gestures incorporate some sort of dimensionality. A gesture will occur across one, two, or three dimensions and include time. The time dimension is important as we can make a distinction between the click of a button on a keyboard - close to instant - and turning the scroll wheel on a mouse. The button click doesn't really have a dimension, and the scroll wheel is just one - but it is the time dimension in the scroll wheel which adds the opportunity for human expression. Typically within mobile UI design and development input has been limited to button pressing. The use of long presses expands the functionality, but there is very little room for rich input. However, with the ever increasing penetration of touch enabled screens into the market, the opportunity for gesture based input and the need for understanding how to use gestures rapidly increases.

What is TAT doing? TAT has worked on numerous interfaces which incorporate gestures. Giving both interaction design and technology support. While multitouch devices have had a lot of focus recently, we are also looking into how to better support and encourage great design with single touch and cursors through the D-Pad or a trackball. On a longer timeline, one of the promising technologies which we are exploring is handsets which combine UI projections through embedded pico projectors and visual gesture recognition. The opportunities for collaborative workspaces are both challenging and exciting.

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