Intuitive Gestures on Multi-touch Displays for Reading Radiological Images

Touch-based user interfaces are increasingly used in private and professional domains. While touch interfaces have a high practicability for general daily applications, it is a central question if touch based interfaces also meet requirements of specific professional domains. In this paper we explore the applicability of touch gestures for the domain of medical imaging. We developed a set of intuitively usable gestures, applicable to different screen sizes. The development was entirely user-centered and followed a three-step procedure. (1) The gesture set was developed by asking novices to propose possible gestures for different actions in medical imaging. (2) The gesture set was implemented in a commercial medical imaging solution and (3) evaluated by professional radiologists. The evaluation shows that the user-centered procedure was successful: The gestures did not only work equally well on different screen sizes, but revealed to be intuitive to use or easy to learn. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.