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
"People want to get credit and recognition for the work that they’re doing."
Etienne FangPower of Insights: Why sharing is better than silos with Uber’s Insights Platform
December 16, 2019
"You can't show up with humility unless you have confidence in the value you bring."
Luke Roberts Christian Bason, Ph.D. Amanda Woolley Ben ReasonPanel Discussion
December 4, 2024
"For every 10 men promoted from entry to middle management, only 7.2 women are promoted—showing the broken rung problem."
Joi FreemanA New Vantage Point: Building a Pipeline for Multifaceted Research(ers)
March 30, 2020
"Multipurpose communication means the same insights might be presented differently depending on the audience’s needs and what outcome you want."
Molly FargotsteinMultipurpose Communication & UX Research Marketing
September 12, 2019
"If you walk in someone else’s shoes, then you’ve taken their shoes."
Sahibzada MayedThe Politics of Radical Research: A Manifesto
March 27, 2023
"How can I guide my community to design the form and behavior of light on the edge of becoming this?"
Greg PetroffExit Interview #1: Greg Petroff: From Silicon Valley Executive to Sonoma County Possibilitarian
September 24, 2025
"Flexibility is not about using the same methodologies; it’s about moving together towards the same goal."
Sol MeszHands or Brains? How to Hire for Strategy, Strategically
January 8, 2024
"Tools are evolving fast; it's crucial to analyze which tools will remain market leaders before heavy integration."
Farid SabitovAutomatization for Large Enterprise Teams
January 8, 2024
"We simply told leadership we don’t even know what we don’t know or what we do know, leading to a research insights repository."
Sarah Sgarlato Pierini Kevin NewtonFrom Passion to Execution: A Story of Evolving Research Maturity at LinkedIn
September 9, 2022
