A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication made with a part of the body, according to Wikipedia. A simple example would be waving hello or goodbye. When gestures are applied to a computer program they provide a method to execute common commands. You can think of a gesture as a quick way to invoke application functionality. 

Why are gestures starting to appear in browsers?

The browser has been morphing over the past 10 years from a rendering engine into a composite application framework. Robust API’s, universal install base and developer friendly content controls provide an obvious choice for most large and small software projects. 

As the browser continues to grow in popularity, it also grows in functionality. Making this functionality available without complicating the user experience is challenging. Gestures are one method to accomplish this goal.  

One of the new features introduced with IE8 is called Activities. Activities move entire website’s into the user’s right mouse, removing multiple steps from the user’s process. This has the opportunity to change how people interact with the web; things like searching, looking up word definitions and exploring addresses can now be accomplished in context with a single gesture inside of IE8. 

At Me.dium we rolled out an activity as part of the IE8 beta 1 launch. Try it, and let us know what you think.

Where is this going next

When I think of Apple’s IPhone or Microsoft’s surface technology multi-touch takes the concept of gesturing to a whole new level. A pinch or stretch in these UI paradigms visually changes the experience. The next wave in UI design might be completely gesture based, what do you think?