Usability of Gesture-based Mobile Applications for First-time Use

Abstract

Gestural touch interaction is increasingly being employed when designing interaction for mobile devices. This study compares the usability of manipulative touch gestures to that of an established interaction style based on buttons and menus in a realistic setting during first-time use of two mobile productivity applications. Usability is measured as task success, time on task, error rates, and user satisfaction ratings. While results over all tasks indicate a negative influence of gestures during first-time use, they also show that users are able learn new gestures in a shorter time span than expected. However, this does not ensure users’ overall satisfaction with a gestural interface.