Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
What co-speech gestures reveal about users’ thinking during interviews
Summary
Drs. DeSutter and Scopelitis discussed how User Experience (UX) researchers can triangulate and enrich information from one-on-one interviews by attending to users’ co-speech gestures—the spontaneous movements that humans make with their hands and body when communicating. Gestures are a “window to the mind” and can reveal unspoken information about users’ emotional states as well as the structure and composition of their mental models. They concluded with a practical guide for efficiently implementing gesture research.
Key Insights
-
•
Gestures provide a non-verbal window into users' mental models, often revealing thoughts not expressed in speech.
-
•
Representational gestures, especially those made in personal gesture space, indicate cognitive processes and implicit imagery.
-
•
Users commonly hold multiple, context-dependent mental models rather than a single static one.
-
•
In interviews, interviewer gestures increase participant gesturing and improve conversational rapport.
-
•
Video interviews pose challenges for capturing gestures fully; positioning and prompting can mitigate this.
-
•
Speech-gesture mismatches often signal ongoing mental model construction or word searching by users.
-
•
Gestures can reveal emotional attachment or disengagement with technology, influencing adoption and retention.
-
•
Mental models can be anchored by recent technology prototypes, such as chat GPT for AI understanding.
-
•
Structured interview protocols that elicit gesturing and separate talking from tool use optimize gesture data collection.
-
•
Open source motion tracking and gesture analysis tools can aid qualitative research by quantifying gesture patterns.
Notable Quotes
"Gestures are a window to the mind."
"Gesture and speech form an integrated system; they reinforce one another."
"We’re really leaving half of our data on the table by not attending to gesture when eliciting mental models."
"Gesture is not computer and smartphone gestures, but spontaneous movements people make with hands and arms."
"Four me gestures happen in that personal gesture space and serve as thinking tools for the speaker."
"When gestures and speech mismatch, it often means the speaker is still refining their mental model."
"Without looking at the gesture, we would have come to a less complete mental model."
"Users have more than one mental model; they can be constructed on the fly depending on context."
"The degree to which the user feels in control with an intelligent agent brings up conversational mental models."
"The more you gesture, the more your interviewee will gesture."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Imagine if everyone you worked with had deep empathy for your customers and made decisions based on those customer needs."
Amy Jiménez Márquez Michael J. Metts Joie ChungThe Atypical UX Manager Path
July 23, 2020
"It’s important for us all to experiment with ways to harness the excitement for research as it grows beyond our own teams."
Jesse ZolnaInviting the Whole Org to Come See For Yourself
March 30, 2020
"85% of people were leaving after viewing only one page, showing severe bounce issues."
Mackenzie Cockram Sara Branco Cunha Ian FranklinIntegrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research from Discovery to Live
December 16, 2022
"People’s ability to cope with information complexity isn’t increasing exponentially, so we need to find the perfect innovation space."
Kelly GotoEmotion Economy: Ethnography as Corporate Strategy
May 13, 2015
"The first to solve accessibility for new modalities will be market leaders for decades to come."
Sam ProulxTo Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
September 9, 2022
"Moral injury is not just about witnessing harm; it's the inner knowing that you might also be complicit in producing it."
Rachael Dietkus, LCSWThe power to heal and harm
March 13, 2025
"The absence of feedback during design demos was a red flag — we missed information and had to realign quickly."
Frank DuranPartnership Playbook: Lessons Learned in Effective Partnership
January 8, 2024
"Moderation is a performance; the best focus groups feel like natural conversations, not rigid Q&A."
Taiye Akin-AkinyosoyeAmplifying voices and enhancing user research through group interviews
March 12, 2025
"AI reflects dominant hegemonic views, creating virtual worlds where counter views do not exist."
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW Llewyn Paine Nishanshi Shukla David WomackAI: Passionate defenses and reasoned critique [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
September 18, 2024
