Designing a Practical UI For a Gesture-Based Interface 44
An anonymous reader writes with a link to an intriguing account of the challenge of designing a close-range, hand and finger-based gesture recognition interface using 3D cameras. Things like this look good in science-fiction, but it's hard to create a gesture-based system that makes sense to the user and rejects gestures not meant for the computer.
As an ASL Interpreter... (Score:5, Informative)
I interpreted ASL in educational settings (High School, Freelance, University, Public, and even elementary.) for something like 6 or 7 years.
My arms were ripped, and you could expect to burn several hundred calories (EASY) during a day of doing that. Also, I had learned the stretch properly thanks to some Aikido training.. and I still had some bad habits that caused me repetitive stress problems.
Gestures are a novelty, and a lot of work for the user... I think there will be many blind alleys before they become natural.
Some problems/ideas I see:
1. Exhaustion - you waste a lot of energy
2. "Namespaces" - you can make two gestures at once - geez... so you have a left hand gesture that tells the computer to listen (the ASL "Attention" one handed would work) + a command - maybe even "against" that hand. Its like a salute with your left hand vertical moving away from your face.
3. Facial expressions are a HUGE part of ASL, probably not even considered. "WH" questions get eyebrows scrunched, other queries eyebrows up, puffed cheeks and all kinds of things...
4. Security - I defy you to sign EXACTLY like someone else... It's possible, and easy in a mocking sense (High schoolers) - but I imagine a door that could see you carrying groceries and unlock combined with voice recog., or other simple things would be useful.