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
"Trust is paramount; designers want transparency about what the AI is trained on and what data it uses."
Clara Kliman-SilverUX Futures: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Design
June 7, 2023
"Speed is not everything we need velocity—speed plus direction is key."
Patrizia BertiniDesigning Within the Lines: How the EU AI Act Can Spark Better AI Innovation
December 11, 2025
"Attrition is real and painful but also an opportunity if we have a deep and broad hiring funnel."
Jennifer Bolduc Diane Gregorio Emily DayWhat's involved with getting people back to work?: A panel discussion
July 1, 2021
"I often find myself wondering what I really gained from time away from my desk beyond swag and catching up with colleagues."
Bria AlexanderTheme Two Intro
October 3, 2023
"Logic models are boring but powerful tools to align expectations that behavior change is complex and not immediate."
Amy BucherHarnessing behavioral science to uncover deeper truths
March 12, 2025
"More people being closer to customers is very likely to help us achieve better products and services."
Leisa ReicheltThe Five Dysfunctions of Democratized Research at Scale
March 30, 2020
"AI follow-up questions led to frustrated participants because it asked highly obvious questions and ignored detailed context."
Erin Weigel Petra RajkovTesting and Experimentation Tools
March 12, 2026
"We are really busy right now, but it’s mostly clients who already know us coming with new roles."
Dave Hoffer Joanne WeaverUX Job Search AMA #3 with Joanne Weaver and Dave Hoffer
July 16, 2025
"It seems quite appropriate to start off enterprise UX with a discussion around systems thinking."
Uday GajendarTheme One Intro
June 6, 2023
