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
"We tend to do anything but inquire, even though inquiry is most effective for sustainable change."
Laura WeissThere is No Playbook: Leader as Coach During Challenging Times
April 26, 2024
"We have to be each other’s cavalry right now — leaning into things for our own and each other’s sake."
Julie Norvaisas Pert Eilers Mina JonssonBack to basics, or start from scratch?
March 12, 2025
"Designers must do the internal work of self-awareness and reflection before shifting power to communities."
Bria Alexander Ariel Kennan Charlotte Lee Sarah Brooks Emily Lessard Gordon Ross Joanne DongReflect and Chart Forward
December 10, 2021
"EMRs and EHRs have terrible user experience and are ripe for design innovation, similar to FinTech years ago."
Theresa NeilDesigning for Wellness: Specializing in Healthcare
May 22, 2024
"Asking someone’s origin story gets you their why, not just the what."
Indra KlavinsA Design Ops Girl in a Dev Ops World
October 23, 2019
"We tend to characterize our own experience in new or unexpected situations as messing up."
Steve PortigalWar Stories LIVE! Steve Portigal
March 30, 2020
"Team leads manage down by coaching their teams, manage across by diplomacy, and manage up by protecting their teams from executive distractions."
Peter MerholzDesign at Scale is People!
June 11, 2021
"We’ve learned that clear communication about roles and process is key to reduce confusion between regular design work and self-service."
Nora Tejeda Giovanna AlonsoScaling Design Capabilities at BBVA Through a Self-service Design Model
June 10, 2021
"Rapid research is really great if you wanna promote research within your organization, but it’s not supposed to be the only thing you do."
Feleesha SterlingBuilding a Rapid Research Program
May 18, 2023