Poster presented at ACM DIS '25 conference. The typical approach to gesture set design, which relies on one-to-one mappings between gestures and system functions, often presents challenges for users in terms of gesture discoverability, learnability, and memorability. In this paper, we examine the hypothesis that semantically related system functions can benefit from the use of congruent gestures, whereas functions structured in the form of parameterized action may be better supported by hierarchical gestures. We report the results of a gesture elicitation study conducted with 𝑛1=24 participants, who proposed stroke gestures for a multi-display touchscreen to effect file-related manipulation referents either locally on a central display or remotely on a lateral display. In a follow-up study, an original mixed method combining elicitation and identification, another sample of 𝑛2=24 participants was instructed to focus on congruent and hierarchical gestures for the same referents. Our results reveal higher agreement and an increased perceived goodness of fit between gestures and system functions in the second study.

1. DIS 2025
The 20th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
Funchal, Madeira - July 5-9, 2025
Congruent and Hierarchical Gesture Set Design
Jean Vanderdonckt
Université catholique de
Louvain, Belgium
Radu-Daniel Vatavu
Stefan cel Mare Univ. of
Suceava, Romania
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Congruent Non-congruent
Hierarchical
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hierarchical
Hierarchical
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hierarchical Open file
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Central Lateral
Central Lateral
Experiment 1st 2nd
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Paolo Roselli
University of Rome “Tor
Vergata”, Italy
Arthur Sluÿters
Université catholique de
Louvain, Belgium
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My Network
My Disk
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My Network
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15. Collect files locally
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Are congruent and hierarchical gestures better than non-congruent, non-hierarchical ones?
Experiment #1: A gesture elicitation study (n=24, R=12, 2 locations (central vs. lateral) => 24 referents
Experiment #2: A mixed elicitation study = end-user elicitation+identification (n=24, R=15, 2 locations) => 30 referents
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