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.
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
"It doesn’t happen very often, but I’m speechless. I’m truly impressed by the clarity, structure, and impressive synthesis of the Homeowner Playbook."
Katie HansenFinding the unknown in the known: Harnessing meta-analysis and literature review
March 12, 2025
"Our team does not actually build the components consumed by product teams. Implementation teams report to their respective engineering and product orgs."
PJ Buddhari Nate BaldwinMeet Spectrum, Adobe’s Design System
June 9, 2021
"Research operations can and should be engines of strategic influence."
Christopher GeisonTheme 1 Intro
March 25, 2024
"Our job as innovation managers is to build the playgrounds where people play—designing the built environment to complement policy and sustain future generations."
Liz EbengoThe Burden on Children: The Cost of Insufficient Post-Conflict Services and Pathways Forward
December 4, 2024
"Incentives influence behavior strongly, and lack of awareness about them leads to decisions misaligned with desired impact."
Sheryl CababaExpanding Your Design Lens with Systems Thinking
February 23, 2023
"Where in your design process is your biggest opportunity for AI adoption?"
Llewyn PaineDay 1 Using AI in UX with Impact
June 10, 2025
"It is your job because no one else is coming to ensure we do the right thing with what we build."
Mariah Hay Marina Martin Husani Oakley Eduardo OrtizBUILD: Discussion
June 14, 2018
"Using the inverted pyramid doesn’t mean dumbing down your findings, it means explaining complex issues clearly."
Bruce GillespieLearning from journalism: Balancing impactful communication with compassionate storytelling
March 13, 2025
"No-And is like no idea sucks and my idea is better. It’s very easy to spot these things."
Cheryl PlatzCollaborative Creativity through Improv
November 7, 2018
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
What setup is required for AI tools to incorporate broader organizational context into research analysis?
Will AI eventually replace unmoderated usability testing with simulations of user behavior?
What does the acquisition of User Interviews by UserTesting mean for participants and research ops teams?