Surveying Expert-Level Gesture Use And Adoption On Multi-Touch Tablets

Multi-touch interaction on mobile devices typically consists of taps and swipes - simple gestures that don't exploit the full range of technical and human capabilities. Some devices offer more sophisticated, expert-level gestures, but these haven't yet been widely adopted. To determine what factors might be preventing widespread adoption of expert level gestures, we examine the use of multi-tasking features on the iPad as representative of widely available, but optional, expert-level gestures. We survey a group of 106 iPad users about their device habits, awareness of expert level gestures, and how they are used in everyday tasks. We determine that users have a fairly high awareness of expert level gestures, and willingness to perform them, but often find them difficult to discover and challenging to learn. We conclude with design implications for future research.