Designing a Natural User Interface to Support Information Sharing among Co-Located Mobile Devices

Abstract

Users of mobile devices share their information through various methods, which are supported by mobile devices. However, the information sharing process of these methods are typically redundant and sometimes tedious. This is because it may require the user to repeatedly perform a series of steps to share one or more selected files with another individual. The proliferation of mobile devices support new, more intuitive, and less complicated solutions to information sharing in the field of mobile computing. The aim of this paper is to present MotionShare, which is a NUI application that supports information sharing among co-located mobile devices. Unlike other existing systems, MotionShare’s distinguishing attribute is its inability of relying on additional and assisting technologies in determining the positions of devices. A primary example is using an external camera to determine device positioning in a spatial environment. An analytical evaluation investigated the accuracy of device positioning and gesture recognition, where the results were positive. The empirical evaluation investigated any usability issues. The results of the empirical evaluation showed high levels of user satisfaction and that participants preferred touch gestures to point gestures.

Keywords

• Information sharing
• natural user interfaces
• mobile computing
• gesture-based interaction