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
"We need to define success in ways that make our work meaningful and purposeful."
Kristin SkinnerTheme 2: Introduction and Provocation
January 8, 2024
"I walked into the building and it just felt surreal. It didn’t feel right in my body to be there anymore."
Mary-Lynne WilliamsExit Interview #4: From Product Design Leadership to Sound Healing
January 14, 2026
"It doesn’t matter how much data you have if you don’t ask the right question."
Jen Cardello Dr. Shadi Janansefat Alex WrightCurating insight: Strategies for integrating knowledge across research functions
March 11, 2025
"Embrace chaos as a gift, a constraint that fuels innovation and growth mindset."
Cheryl PlatzCollaborative Creativity through Improv
November 7, 2018
"Design as a function is empathetic and human-centered, corporations are calculating and bureaucratic; integrating these value systems takes effort."
Peter MerholzThe 2025 State of UX/Design Organizational Health
November 12, 2025
"People don’t actually hate innovation; they like their jobs and feel threatened by change."
Laura KleinUnique challenges of innovation in enterprises
April 23, 2020
"You don’t need to be an expert in math to start making connections between math and UX."
Scott PlewesWhy Isn't Your UX Approach Going Viral?: A Mathematical Model
March 28, 2023
"Please read our code of conduct — even though we’re virtual, we are a community obligated to kindness and respect."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
November 18, 2022
"People don’t always get straight to their question; they might need to do some investigation first before they figure out what to ask."
Liwei DaiThe Heart and Brain of the AI Research
March 31, 2020
