Exploring and Evaluating the Combined Multi-Touch and In-the-Air Tabletop Interaction Space.

Recently presented tabletop setups that combine multi-touch and in-the-air input mechanisms offer new interaction possibilities above and around the surface. This paper introduces a comprehensive collection of gestural interaction metaphors based on these user input mechanisms in combination with an in-depth evaluation regarding usability and design aspects. The introduced gestures can be used in a low-cost setup employing a Kinect depth camera and our gesture library Hoverreact. We present our metaphors and our evaluation results as a set of design guidelines for recurring tasks in tabletop interaction design.