Technologies
Gesture control
Generative design
Particle animation
Year: 2011
Publication
DeSForM 2012, New Zealand
In this project, we explored the use of air gestures for a wake-up light, a type of alarm clock which wakes the user through both light and sound. Gesture control has two well-known drawbacks. First, it needs an initiation action to prevent that the product reacts inadvertently to gestures which were not made with the intention to control it. Secondly, air gestures offer no feedforward or feedback: the user cannot see where he should act and does not know whether his gesture is being recognized until the function is triggered. In this concept, we implemented a form of initiation by delay. During this delay, an animated point cloud mirrors the user’s hand movements to indicate his gestures are within the active zone. If the user holds his hand still for long enough, the point cloud morphs into a cross, indicating that horizontal and vertical gestures will now be recognized.
We discovered that gesture control has a number of lesser known advantages. One is that gestures require less focus than traditional, physical controls and therefore are a comfortable form of interaction when one is sleepy. Another advantage is that gesture control can offer analogue control without the need for traditional analogue controls such as sliders or rotaries which clutter the product design.
