Touch gestures on WIndows 8 and its usability issues

Here is one very good article about new Windows 8 UI, metro, from Windows developer group themselves. You can see neat breakdown of touch gestures in Windows 8 and potential issues.

Must read if you are interaction designer that involves touch gesture stuff.

Via: MSDN Blogs

Productivity Future Vision (2011)

Rapid development of touch-screens, wearable computer, and contextual design reach this future. I really loved the idea of translator-AR glasses!

Thanks to my friend Stephen Brown for posting this!

Distinction between ‘Manipulation’ and ‘Gesture’

nowherefast:

Terminology: the difference between a gesture and a manipulation

by Ron George. [September 6, 2009]

Here’s how you can tell.

Manipulations

1. Contextual – they only happen at specific location(s) or on specific object(s)
2. React immediately – there is a direct correlation in cause and effect between your interaction and the system (this does not include visual affordance)
3. Can be single state, but are usually 3 or more states (see Bill Buxton’s paper on Chunking and Phrasing)
4. Direct (could possibly be considered indirect by way of augmenting your actual interactions with the reaction of the system) – your actions directly affect the system, object, or experience in some way

Gestures

1. Not contextual – they can be anywhere in the system in location and time
2. The system waits for the series of events to complete to decide on how to react (again, this does not include visual affordance)
3. They contain at least 2 states
4. Indirect – they do not affect the system directly according to your action. Your action is symbolic in some way that issues a command, statement, or state.