Rosenverse
What co-speech gestures reveal about users’ thinking during interviews

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s 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

Friday, June 30, 2023 • Rosenfeld Community
Share the love for this talk
What co-speech gestures reveal about users’ thinking during interviews
Speakers: Dane DeSutter and Stephanie Scopelitis
Link:

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."

Ask the Rosenbot
Ben Reason
Making the system visible: The fastest path to better decisions
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Maria Skaaden
Panel Discussion: Methodologies and Work Environments
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Steve Portigal
War Stories LIVE! Steve Portigal
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Theresa Neil
Just Build Me a Dashboard!
2019 • Enterprise Community
Shanti Mathew
Civic Design at Scale: Introducing the Public Policy Layer Cake
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Patrizia Bertini
DesignOps + KPIs = Measure your Impact!
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Bill Scott
Lean Engineering: Engineering for Learning and Experimentation in the Enterprise
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Smitha Papolu
Theme 3 Discussion
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Jose Coronado
From Zero to Hero
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Alicia D. Johnson
Disasters and the 21st Century
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Jaime Creixems
Best Practices when Creating and Maintaining a Design System
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Rachel Posman
"Ask Me Anything" with Rachel Posman and John Calhoun, Authors of the Upcoming Rosenfeld Book, The Design Conductors
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Victor Udoewa
Research in the Pluriverse
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Aditi Ruiz
Pulse Check: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 2
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Dorelle Rabinowitz
The Magic Word is Trust
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold

More Videos

Marc Fonteijn

"Everyone goes through quite an extensive application process, but it was stress-free and informal."

Marc Fonteijn Ru Butler

Increase your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)

December 3, 2024

Dem Gerolemou

"No one wants to use a calendar; they want to be organized. Protect users from having to engage with complexity."

Dem Gerolemou Alexis Oh Neef Rehman

Climate technology fundamentals

May 15, 2024

Daniela Magaña Flores

"Home 24’s website is not cluttered and well-structured, explaining its higher appeal and inspiration scores."

Daniela Magaña Flores Ariane Rahn Jeff Ephraim Bander

Ahead of Competition: Learn What UX Benchmarking Can Do for Your Business Today

March 10, 2022

Abbey Smalley

"I had sorely underestimated how many internal tools there actually were — at least over 200."

Abbey Smalley Sylas Souza

Scaling UX Past the Size of Your Team

January 8, 2024

Patrick Commarford

"We never documented our criteria, leaving stakeholders feeling our decisions were mysterious."

Patrick Commarford

Design Staffing for Impact

January 8, 2024

Xenia Adjoubei

"The tapestry exhibition will be a three-dimensional map co-created with refugees and local school kids to reflect their stories."

Xenia Adjoubei Sean Bruce

Empowering Communities Through the Researcher in Residence Program

March 29, 2023

Craig Villamor

"The only form of ethical persuasion that exists is when the goals of the persuader are aligned with the goals of the persuading."

Craig Villamor

Design Systems for Ethical Design

January 26, 2023

Jon Fukuda

"We encourage you all to be your own heroes and connect your own documents."

Jon Fukuda Ellie Krysl

Design Planning and Management Support

October 3, 2023

Iain McMaster

"Leadership needs to give specific directions to open up space for collaboration and inclusion."

Iain McMaster IHan Cheng

Design and Product: from Frenemy to Harmony

November 29, 2023