Preliminary version Understanding user gestures for manipulating 3D objects from touchscreen inputs

Multi-touch interfaces have emerged with the widespread use of smartphones. Although a lot of people interact with 2D applications through touchscreens, interaction with 3D applications remains lit-tle explored. Most of 3D object manipulation techniques have been created by designers and users are generally put aside from the de-sign creation process. We conducted a user study to better under-stand how non-technical users interact with a 3D object from touch-screen inputs. The experiment has been conducted while users ma-nipulated a 3D cube with three points of view for rotations, scaling and translations (RST). Sixteen users participated and 432 gestures were analyzed. To classify data, we introduce a taxonomy for 3D manipulation gestures with touchscreens. Then, we identify a set of strategies employed by users to realize the proposed cube trans-formations. Our findings suggest that each participant uses several strategies with a predominant one. Finally, we propose some guide-lines to help designers in the creation of more user friendly tools. Index Terms: H.5.2 [Information Systems]: Information in-terfaces and presentation—Evaluation methodology, interaction styles, user-centered design