Update: The proposed design described below has been released as Cue.
One of the clearly understood problems associated with touch interfaces is people are often left guessing as to what gesture(s) can be performed throughout an app. There are common interaction guidelines to follow, but that can only take us so far. One of the obvious ways to help solve this issue is to articulate the interactions allowed through gestural icons.
These gesture icons act as roadsigns to an app for interaction way-finding. As expected, there has been a significant collection of gesture icon sets that have been made available to fill this need. The current crop of icons succeed in clarity, but they lack the iconic qualities necessary to act as a standard representation of gestures. My goal is to help create a foundational set of icons that are flexible, clear and distilled to a point where they could become a standard visual system to build from – ultimately to be used within apps for when explicit communication is needed.
The Proposed System
Since all touch gestures start with the application of finger(s) to screen, the system makes that action it’s foundation. Instead of representing the entire hand for a gesture, the icons focus on the point of action. The tap icon is an encapsulation of the fingertip.
The principles that drove the icon design were the following:
- Create a core visual language that all gestures could build from.
- Gestures will come, go and change over time. The system should be able to support that.
- Distill each gesture to its core action.
- The illustrative nature of most gesture icons reduce focus from the fundmental interaction being performed.
- Represent each gesture in a non-literal, yet clear way.
- Not everyone is right handed, nor do they perform gestures uniformly which makes literal expression less than optimal.
- Design forms that would be legible at small sizes.
- Mobile devices are already space-constrained. My goal was to create icons that could take up little space in a mobile interface if needed.
The whole system builds from the tap and press icons above. Below lays out the standard gesture interactions found on most modern mobile devices.
Icon Comparisons
Gesture icons, while visually clear, represent gestures very literally. This can be problematic because it insinuates that it is how the gesture should be performed. The icons also quickly lose legibility at small sizes. Luke Wroblewski took a different route with his icons, showing the the start/finish states of a gesture, which is quite helpful, but makes the icon more elaborate. Below are comparisons between the different gesture icon sets (my concept, Gesture Icons, LukeW’s icons and GestureWorks respectively).
Tap
There are a few things to notice between the icons. In the tap gesture, look at the percentage of space in each icon that is dedicated to the actual tap. By displaying the entire hand, the fingertip responsible for the tap takes a small portion of the actual icon – which is a very inefficient use of space. Showing the hand for a gesture certainly provides useful context, but the hand dominates each icon, diminishing the point of focus.
Swipe Right
The inclusion of the entire hand is all the more problematic the more complex the gesture becomes. Even with the simple swipe gesture, icons become very difficult to confidently read at small sizes.
Spread
The illustrative style also becomes problematic with gestures that can be performed in many different ways. For instance, the spread can be done with one hand or with two hands. It can be done with the thumb and index finger, thumb and middle finger, index and middle fingers, etc. It can be done with the right or left hand. Two of the icons assume the gesture is be performed with thumb and index from the right hand. Another uses two hands. My opinion is that gestures need to be abstracted beyond any specific form of execution to be successful.
Next Steps
Nearing the completion of this icon system, I ran across the work of Ron George who had come to the same conclusion as I had in the belief that standardization would require abstraction. This gives me confidence that there is something to this idea. I do not think the icons are perfect, but I truly think there is something to this idea. I am planning on releasing it as a finished set when it is at a more refined state. I am hoping to get feedback from readers to get a sense if the sentiment is shared and how it can be improved for greater clarity and aesthetics. Once I feel confident that the system is at an appropriate level of completion, I will release it for free under the Creative Commons share-a-like license.
56 Comments
[...] Redesigned Gesture Icons [...]
[...] Redesigned Gesture Icons [...]
[...] Redesigned Gesture Icons [...]
i like the set, now that i understand it. but i have to admit that when seeing the first two icons, without knowing what it is all about, thus my reaction in its purest and most honest immediate form, i thought that they depict a saint woman (virgin mary) or a muslim woman wearing a burka or so. i’d thus kindly suggest to design the fingertip a bit less abstract, in order to make it more obvious that it’s a fingertip. thanks!
I definitely get that feedback a lot and I am tempted to go back and rethink the finger icon. If anything worthwhile comes up, I may take a stab at a new version.
Just as Dan pointed my first impression on the finger was seing a nun or a covered woman.
But your conclussions on spacing, scalability and the future evolution of gestures is amazing. Thanks a lot for this
Thanks man! I definitely can see the resemblance of a nun. One of these days, I may try to de-nun-ize the icons… Thanks for the kind words!
It is excellent as far as it goes, but I would like to see a more uniform application of these icons to gestures of mouse, button and touch hardware, that is, you’ve omitted the thing that is being touched. For instance, how would you indicate that a button on the side of the tablet is to be tapped, or held, if the button is not in the icon? How would you design an icon to distinguish rotating the mouse wheel from clicking the mouse wheel (yes, you can click it like a button) when the mouse is not in the icon set? How are we to deal with multi-screen touches, for instance the Microsoft Display Table in which a tap in particular direction is how a user chooses a display to move an image onto? What about keyboards, buttons, orientations and accelerometers in conjunction with taps? What about finger pressure (which indicates line thickness in some drawing apps), or styluses (starting to replace fingers in signature collection software)?
But the seminal point to ponder is why, in a world in which mouse and tablet have equal share of the web, would an icon set only apply to one, inducing designers to invent new, and possibly incompatible, icon sets for the other, and for future hardware?
That question is the key to discover how to Widen Your Scope. Design for the future by thinking more deeply about extensibility. You don’t have to solve it, but you can hint at potential solutions, right?
I like the idea behind this project :)
The simplicity of the curves and directional arrows works really well in the designs, so well I’d question the need to represent the finger at all. When I first looked at the overview layouts the finger element of the designs felt far too dominant, it’s all my eyes focused on really. I understand these wouldn’t be displayed to a user in this context other than on an instructions area or page, but as other people have suggested, the focal point seems to be the finger rather than the action. I’d look to try and reverse your visual emphasis and make the finger secondary to the action. I’d at least try and see if users could understand your iconography without the finger. The visual system you’ve developed looks consistent and quite intuitive…
Hope that helps, or at least added thought.
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