Towards a minimal interaction scheme: Initial observations on gesture repertoire and communication strategies

This paper investigates a prototype of an interaction design for a flexible natural language user interface with a minimal set of gestures and natural language commands. The prototype is evaluated using a Hi-Fi simulation approach that allows the enactment of an interfaces that accommodates gesture and speech input for directive commands. In the scenario users were guiding a robot equipped with a camera and microphone through a simple maze. The data from six users were collected and subsequently analysed with respect to the users´ communicative behavior. In the analysis of the data special consideration was given to the gesture repertoire. It was found that users, when presented with static images of gestures, added their own dynamic patterns. Furthermore the users appeared to give precedence to the deictic component of gestures that meant left/right. Users were also opportunistic meaning that when they could they used predefined goal points and let the robot use its autonomous navigation to find its way.