Gesture lab — Hitesh Vaghela

1. Move the pointer
2. Choose what you land on
3. Move between things without aiming

Turn the camera on, then start.

A fist is what takes a circle in a run. Make a few here first, to find out whether yours reads as one — mid-run is a bad time to learn that it does not.

Left hand not seen 0 fists 0 palms

Right hand not seen 0 fists 0 palms

Travel 420 px per hand width How far the pointer goes for a given movement. Extra speed when you move fast 40 At nought the pointer goes exactly as far as your hand did, every time. Higher and a quick movement is given more than a slow one, which covers ground but stops it matching your hand. Steadiness 68 Higher holds the pointer still against a shaking hand, and is later to set off. Lower follows you sooner and shakes with you.

How the pointer follows The first puts the pointer where your hand is, so the same place in front of the camera is always the same place on the screen and every corner is one movement away. The second adds movement up, so the pointer stays wherever it was pushed to.

How to choose Pointing aims a pointer at the circle. Stepping never aims at anything: a nudge left, right, up or down hops the choice to whatever is next that way. Either way a fist takes it, so a hand resting somewhere cannot choose by accident.

What takes it A fist is deliberate: a hand that stops somewhere cannot choose by accident, but shutting it is a movement of its own. Resting takes whatever you stay on for a moment, which asks nothing of the hand but cannot tell stopping to think from stopping to choose.

Which hand One hand means only that hand is followed, and the other can rest on the desk. Both alternates and names which one each round. Any takes whichever is up.

All three are kept with every run, and runs are only ever compared against others at the same settings.

gone: 0
last: —
middling time: —
rate: —
wander: —
overshot: 0
wrong one: 0

How it has gone

go	how far	how wide	difficulty	time	rate	wander

No runs yet. Do one and it will be kept.

Reading it

rate: The number to watch. How much difficulty you got through each second, in bits. A far, small circle is worth more than a near, big one, so this can be compared between rounds even though every round is laid out differently — which plain timing cannot. Higher is better. A mouse manages something like 4; a hand in the air will not, and that is fine. What matters is whether yours climbs.
wander: How far the pointer actually travelled against how far it needed to. One is a straight line. Three means three times the distance — a hand hunting for the circle rather than going to it. This usually falls before the times do, so it is the first sign that something is being learned.
overshot: Times you crossed into the right circle and back out before settling. Mostly a question of gain: a lot of these means the pointer moves further than your hand expects.
wrong one: Times you settled on a circle nobody asked for. If this is high while wander is low, the trouble is reading the prompt rather than moving the hand.
middling time: The middle of your times, not the average — one round where you looked away would drag an average across the room and leave a middle where it was.

Make each shape and hold it. A card lights when it is read, and counts how many times it has been.

Tick the shapes to work on, then start.

Wave your hand about. Slowly, then quickly, then as fast as you can — across the picture, toward the camera and away, turned flat and turned edge-on. Nothing is being read here but whether the hand is still there.

Turn the camera on

held: —
speed now: —
fastest: —
dropouts: 0
middling gap: —
worst gap: —
pictures a second: —
the camera says: —

How sure the model must be: 0.45 — lower finds a hand more often and risks finding one that is not there

Each of these fires once and then waits for your hand to settle. If one fires when you did not mean it, that is the thing worth knowing.

Start, and it will ask for one movement at a time.

Two ways of choosing the same thing. The first never asks you to aim; the second does. Time yourself on both.

Choose without aiming

Swipe left or right to move the frame. Pinch to take it.

Not started

Choose by aiming

Move your hand to steer the pointer. Pinch to take it.

Not started

Confirm by holding

Hold an open palm still until the ring closes. For anything you would not want done by accident.

Move a long list

Pinch and pull, the way you would drag paper. Let go and it runs on.

Close your hand on a ball — every fingertip onto the thumb, or a pinch on any one of them, whichever comes easier — carry it to the ring of its colour, and open your hand to let go. Three things at once: taking hold, keeping hold while you move, and letting go where you meant to.