October 12, 2019 4pm | IDC School of Design

KeySlide: Using Directional Gestures on Keyboard for Cursor Positioning

KeySlide is a novel interaction technique to position the text cursor in text editors by refashioning standard physical keyboard used in desktop and laptop devices. The technique enables users to position the cursor at the desired location on text documents using natural and intuitive finger-sliding gestures over the keys of the keyboard. The natural mapping of the gesture to the action eliminates the learnability of the action, and minimises the disruption caused due to switching between the keyboard and the mouse. The design, implementation and evaluation of KeySlide is presented. While the theoretical simulation study found that KeySlide is 52% faster than standard keyboard shortcuts for cursor positioning, a comparison user study consisting of 18 participants, found that text editing performance using KeySlide is 19% slower than using keyboard shortcuts. The discrepancy is discussed.

Cross-cultural Creativity through Collaborative Gameful Ideation

The objective of this research is to investigate whether elements from games (e.g. reward mechanisms; termed gamefulness) has an effect on the creativity displayed during collaborative ideation processes (e.g. brainstorming in business meetings). This investigation includes a cross-cultural comparison (here European & Asian contexts) to explore potential differences regarding the acceptance of gameful approaches. In order to research this, three empirical studies were conducted, one in Denmark and two in Japan. The employed method, Gamebidea, uses key principles from design games and inspiration card workshops. Our findings showed little difference in the number of ideas generated and idea value, and we conclude that Gamebidea performed well in all settings leading us to recommend this method for cross-cultural design collaboration.

Book Review: ‘Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products’

The book is the answer to

• Why people can’t let go off with certain products?
• Why do some products capture our attention while others flop?
• What makes these products addictive?
• Which products put us in habit to use them?
• Is there any pattern or underlying principles in the creation of these products? How successful companies use these to hook us to their products.

The book is written for product managers, designers, marketers and startup founders and anyone who seeks to understand how product influence our behavior. It helps in building products which controls the customer behavior and condition it to form a habit (behaviors done with little or no conscious thought). Gives case studies of Behavioral technique used in some successful products. How business benefits of habitual consumption? How they test our habits or create them? It also discuss about the ethical dimension behind this manipulation.