User-defined mid-air gestures for multiscale GIS interface interaction

ABSTRACT

Multisize geographic information system (GIS) has widely used in social life, and the introduction of natural interactive methods such as gesture interaction further broadens the applications of GIS. Gestures, as a natural means of expression, bring a convenient experience to the use of GIS. The user-elicitation method can determine the user’s original operational intention and take advantage of the natural and convenient gesture interaction. However, current research on elicitation methods mainly focuses on defining the function factors of operation commands and rarely considers the influence of environmental factors such as spatial sizes. This paper takes GIS as the object, which is closely related to multisize space. This paper reports a research project on user-defined gestures for interacting with two-dimensional maps in a virtual reality environment, including three types of GIS operation commands and six sizes of maps. The results showed that the user-defined gestures for the same GIS operation commands varied across map sizes. The increase in map size increased the amount of gestural movement. Drawing on our research, we developed a set of gestures for multisize GIS interface interaction. We hope that this research can provide a guiding foundation for mid-air gesture design for all multisize interfaces.

KEYWORDS:

• GIS interfaces
• multisize space
• mid-air gesture interaction
• elicitation methods
• user-centered design

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the graduate students from the Department of Industrial Design at Southeast University for the selfless support in the experimental process. Thanks to the guidance of the tutor and the support and affirmation of the editors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available with the identifier at the private link (https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/agreement_rate_data/20444712).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), [Grant No.71901061 and No.52275238].