Touch gestures in a medical imaging IT system : A study exploring how to support the design process with tools to achieve a consistency in the use of touch gestures between products

Abstract: The lack of existing guides or recommendations to design for touch is the cause of an opportunity to create a more efficient process for people designing a touch-based system. Today the process is highly time consuming and leads to inconsistency between products which impacts the user experience in a negative way. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to create tools to help UX-designers or developers in the process of constructing touch-based systems with consistency in between platforms. However, challenges arise in consideration of the degree of structure the guide should give to achieve a general yet user friendly experience, specifically in terms of the medical imaging field. To fulfill the aim, the approach of Research through Design is applied throughout the process, with a focus on user testing with the users in healthcare to validate the pairing of touch gestures in a medical imaging system. The conclusion of this thesis includes how to generally use touch gestures in different fields and the process of deciding which functions to assign a gesture to. The knowledge is applied in the result of the thesis work, which is the guidelines and the information cards, that concludes how to support UX-designers and developers in their work with touch gestures.