Pointing the cursor and clicking. Wuuuoshhhhh… That seems like too much work nowadays!
Users have tasted the ease of interaction on mobile devices and now mobile gestures have become the new definition of interaction. Today gestures are more than mere entertainment, they are useful and necessary.
What are gestures?
Merriam Webster’s Collegiate dictionary defines it as “any movement of the body, or part of the body, that expresses or emphasizes an idea, sentiment or attitude.”
Gestures in our context is however, the way users interact with any UI element on the mobile.
Choose the gesture that fits your requirement -
Tapping is the most popular and basic one. When you touch the screen to perform an action like opening up your Facebook app. Tapping is characterized by a simple press of one finger and then a lift.
Then the bigger brother, double-tapping! Users immediately repeat the action of tapping back-to-back. This is generally linked to zooming a screen on mobile.
Now, we get to swiping, which many people are familiar with. Swiping is moving your finger for a small distance and then lifting the finger. The perfect example of this is your iPhone’s lock screen or receiving a call on Android phones.
Long pressing is when your finger touches down on a screen element, holds for a moment, and then lifts off the screen. A resulting touch activity could be opening up the copy box to copy a section of written content.
This is when you press with your finger, hold, move and then lift your finger again. If you’ve ever reordered the arrangement of app icons on your mobile screen, then you’ve done this gesture combination many times!
Swipe your finger quickly in the direction you want the screen to move. The screen scrolls rapidly through menus or pages, or moves sideways in hubs.
Another touch mechanic that’s good for zooming in on your mobile screen, pinch-open requires you to press with two fingers simultaneously, then move your fingers away from each other, and finally lift both fingers.
The opposite touch mechanic and touch activity, pinch-closed involves pressing with two fingers simultaneously, then moving your fingers closer to each other, and finally lifting both fingers. The resulting touch activity is usually zooming out.
Here, you press with two fingers simultaneously before lifting both fingers off the screen. This is usually another way to zoom out on content.
Long Pressing & Dragging (two fingers)
With this gesture, you press with two fingers, hold, move and then lift your fingers. This touch mechanic is good for when you’re working with an interface requiring you to rearrange list items or reorder cards in a collection.
This is where you use two fingers to tap, lift, tap and then lift both fingers again. It’s generally used for zooming out on your screen.
Sometimes, you’ll encounter moving content or animation on your mobile devices, which is where rotation is useful. This is where you’ll press down with two fingers around a central object, then orbit your fingers around it, and, when done, finally lift both fingers.
Using Google Maps when out and about requires you to constantly rotate around significant screen elements to get a better sense of your orientation.
Here is an interesting survey result on gestures -
According to the notes by Luke Wroblewski, the study asked 40 people in 9 different countries to create gestures for 28 tasks like deleting, scrolling, zooming, etc. Surprisingly, the gestures tended to be similar across culture and experience. For example, when prompted to “delete,” most people—regardless of nationality or proficiency with mobile devices—tried dragging the object off screen.
The biggest differences arose in scrolling, where some gestured up and others gestured down, depending on which mobile device, if any, they were more familiar with.
What I wanted to convey through this is that, gesture-based controls seem to come naturally to us, or at least can be picked up quickly.
Let us know if you found this informative.
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