Approachability: How people interpret automatic door movement as gesture

Abstract

Automatic doors exemplify the challenges of designing emotionally welcoming interactive systems-a critical issue in the design of any system of incidental use. We attempt to broaden the automatic door's repertoire of signals by examining how people respond to a variety of "door gestures" designed to offer different levels of approachability. In a pilot study, participants (N=48) who walked past a physical gesturing door were asked to fill out a questionnaire about that experience. In our follow-up study, participants (N=51) viewed 12 video clips depicting a person walking toward and past an automatic door that moved with different speeds and trajectories. In both studies, our Likert-scale measures and open-ended responses indicated significant uniformity in participants' interpretation of the behaviour of the door prototypes. The participants saw these motions as gestures with human-like characteristics such as cognition and intent. Our work suggests that even in non-anthropomorphic objects, gestural motions can convey a sense of approachability. © 2009 Ju & Takayama.