On the Relevance of Freehand Gestures for Peripheral Interaction

Interactions in the visual and attentional periphery can help to perform secondary tasks without an attention shift away from the primary task. In this paper, I define freehand gestures as imprecise moments towards any device or object in the periphery of a user. This kind of gesture can be interpreted by the device and understood as an attempt for activation or deactivation. The interaction can be performed eyes-free, which is an advantage compared to controlling haptic elements such as buttons. The paper will provide example usecases, advantages and constraints of the approach as well as issues I would like to discuss at the workshop with experts on the field of peripheral interaction.