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Gesture-Friendly User Interfaces

Gesture-Friendly User Interfaces

S.Chen
THIS IS ONLY A DEMO

Note: In order to view the applet, you may need to have the JAVA plug-in installed on your machine.  If you are installing JAVA SDK (for program development), the plug-in should be part of this install.  If you do not need the SDK, the JRE is sufficient to run the applet (and a much smaller download).

First, launch the demo applet in a new window by clicking on the preceeding link.  Second, use the standard GUI components to move the box around -- i.e. click on the 'U'p, 'D'own, 'L'eft, and 'R'ight buttons in the lower right corner.  Due to the small size of the buttons, it is relatively difficult to control the motion of the box and perform any other activity at the same time. 

Next, click on the "On" button in the centre of the button panel -- this button toggles between the standard GUI and the gesture-friendly user interfaces.  When in the gesture-friendly mode, a left-mouse click anywhere on the large panel will move the box in the highlighted direction.  A right-mouse click anywhere on the large panel will change the highlighted direction.  It should now be much easier to move the box (via the interface) with one hand and to provide a matching gesture of the boxes motion with the other hand.

A gesture-friendly interface like the one demonstrated should be easy to add to any (on-line) educational tool.  This addition should help improve the use of the tool in a classroom setting.