Gesturing on the handlebar: A user-elicitation study for on-bike gestural interaction

Abstract

There are growing numbers of apps and smartphone-mounts for professional cyclists, since they are crucial to track performances during training. However, these solutions require the athlete to take her hand off the handlebar to interact with it. This represents a major safety issue for the cyclists since it requires leaving the brake control, shifting the attention and, possibly, compromising posture. This paper reports the findings of a user elicitation study conducted with seven professional and semi-professional cyclists in order to design gestures that can be performed while maintaining the hands in the correct position on the handlebar. Results report the frequency of fingers used for these gestures, with the index being the favorite. Furthermore, it provides a classification of gestures in three categories: press, extension and swipe. The most convenient gestures were the thumb and index press, followed by the extension of different combinations of fingers.