Usability Tip - Emphasize Task Content When Testing Devices that Recognize Gestures

When a user's primary (or secondary) means of interacting with a device or application is through gesture recognition, there are often a couple of gesture-related issues that need to be assessed in usability testing. The first issue is the user's awareness of gesture functionality. Do they realize that they can drag and drop objects? Do they realize that "flicking" the touchscreen will result in a different outcome than "nudging"? The second issue is the user's ease of gesturing to complete an action under "typical" conditions (sitting, standing, etc).

Awareness of Gesture Functionality: If you intend to test the user's awareness of gesture recognition, it is essential that the user understand the interface's major features. For example, you might explain that the interface allows the user to save favorite destinations and assign a name or category . You might even tell the user that they can either search for the destination in question or check the places that they have previously visited. The key is to provide the user with enough visibility of the main features that their first few hand movement are very goal-directed. This can be necessary if the interface looks very unfamiliar or responds to finger or hand movements in ways that the user did not expect. Users are more likely to explore an unknown interface if they know that their task can be done.

Ease of Gesturing: If you intend to test the ease of gesture functionality, it helps to provide the user with a specific context. You might set up a task by saying: "On the way to work, you're standing on the train and this phone makes a quiet beep. What would you do next" The user might describe how they would usually pull the phone out of their pocket and check a text message. If you ask them to demonstrate, they might stand up and indicate how they would hold onto the test phone with one hand. And with some encouragement, they may complete their task by retrieving, scrolling, and reading the text message single-handedly. Afterward, you would ask them to discuss how intuitive and comfortable the process was.

Testing Both Types of Issues: Ideally, we would want to test the awareness of gesture functionality first before asking the participant to role-play some of the typical ways that s/he would use the interface in everyday life.