Jared Donovan

	Phone	+617 3365 1634
	Email	jared at itee.uq.edu.au
	Post	School of ITEE, The University of Queensland, 4067 Qld, Australia.
	ICQ	152-977-928
	msn	awarua at hotmail.com

Designing gesture interfaces for complex information environments

Photograph of gesture device on hand Complex systems require new and innovative modes of interaction so that people can work with them skilfully. Gesture interfaces are computer interfaces that allow people to interact with computers or electronic devices by using movements of their body. In workplaces like Dental Surgeries, traditional computer interfaces interfere with the way that dentists would normally do their work. Gesture interfaces promise to make computers easier and more natural to use.

Although there has been over two decades of research into gesture interfaces, most of the research has been concerned with solving technical challenges or exploring the interaction possibilities of gesture interfaces. While technical challenges do remain, the technical feasibility of gesture interfaces has largely been demonstrated.

The most pressing problem for researchers into gesture interfaces is now to find out how to make gesture interfaces work in complex real-world contexts. In my research, I am designing a gesture interface for dentists that will allow them to update an electronic patient record. The design challenge is to create an interface that will not interfere with their preferred work routines or with the relationship between the dentist, assistant and patient. I am doing this by looking at what happens in dental surgeries and involving dental practitioners in the design process.

List of publications

Donovan, J. and Brereton, M. (2005), Movements in Gesture Interfaces, Position Paper to be presented at Approaches to Movement-Based Interaction Workshop, Critical Computing 2005 - Between Sense and Sensibility, The Fourth Aarhus Conference, Aarhus, Denmark, 20-24 August 2005. (pdf)

Donovan, J., M. Brereton (2004). Meaning in Movement: A Gestural Design Game. Proceedings of PDC2004 Artful integration: Interweaving Media, Materials and Practices, Vol 2. pp. 163-166, Toronto, Canada, July 27-31. (pdf)

Donovan, J., J. Pedersen, Vedel-Jensen, M., Sperschneider, W. and Lorenzen, J. (2003). Exploratypes: expressing and provoking actions. 3rd Danish HCI Research Symposium, Roskilde University. (poster available upon request)

Campbell, B., T. Cederman-Haysom, Donovan, J. and Brereton, M. (2003). Springboards into Design: Exploring Multiple Representations of Interaction in a Dental Surgery. OzCHI2003: New Directions in interaction, information environments, media and technology, Brisbane, Australia, Information Environments Program, University of Queensland. (pdf)

Brereton, M., Bidwell, N., Donovan, J., Campbell, B. and Buur, J. (2003) Work at Hand: An Exploration of gesture in the context of work and everyday life to inform the design of gestural input devices. Fourth Australasian User Interface Conference (AUIC2003), Adelaide, South Australia, Australian Computer Society Inc. (pdf)

Brereton, M., Donovan, J. and Viller, S. (2003) Talking about watching: Using the Video Card Game and wiki-web technology to engage IT students in developing observational skills. the fifth Australasian conference on Computing education, Adelaide, Australia, Australian Computer Society, Inc. (pdf)

Donovan, J., Brereton, M. and Bidwell, N. (2002) Understanding Gestures at Work, Short paper and Videotape presentation in Djadjadiningrat, T., Buur, J. and Brereton, M. Look Mama, with Hands! Research Workshop on Tangible Interaction, Gestures and Learning, Designing Interactive Systems Conference London, June 25. (pdf)