[IxDA Discuss] Anticipatory Gestures

[Will Parker]

On Mar 15, 2007, at 1:54 PM, Leisa Reichelt wrote:
>> For someone like me who does click
>> around the screen in "safe" places as a kind of nervous habit,  
>> this is
>> an unwanted functionality. The designers didn't figure on users
>> displaying this kind of "benign interaction" behavior.
>
> I do this all the time too. For me it's a digital version of an
> annoying thing that I do when reading a book, which is to flick
> through the top corner of the pages with my thumb repeatedly. Drives
> people mad, but it's too much of a habit for me to stop.
>
> So, when I'm reading text on a screen, I'm constantly selecting it and
> deselecting it for no reason... just an annoying habit.
>
> I think it's reasonably rare tho'. I've not observed much of this
> either in testing or 'in the wild', and people frequently remark on
> observing me behaving this way that it's strange and unusual.
>
> NY Times apparently does lots of testing. I wonder if they tested this
> new feature and if they saw anything interesting :)

I wonder if this behavior could be captured with any reliability in a  
usability lab setting. Subjects in lab tests are notoriously timid  
about poking around in unfamiliar environments, whether nervously or  
in a directed fashion.

I would think you'd have to design your tests so that the user felt  
'at home' in the test environment before they started displaying  
their nervous-habit interactions.

- Will

Will Parker
wparker at ChannelingDesign.com


"The only people who value your specialist knowledge are the ones who  
already have it." - William Tozier