What is it? Nowadays traveling has become accessible for most people who seek to experience different cultures. In some countries around the world, it is common to find citizens that speak only their native language. What if to enhance the experience of another culture is about understanding each other? Though people tend to find ways expressing themselves by using gestures for communication purposes, the message is not always clear. The aim of this project is to merge the gap between different cultures and to create a better understanding by using the naturally gestures and translating them into visual representations. By doing so, a mutual ground of communication is created between people who speak different languages. Pictogest is a connected device that helps you to communicate in an easier way by enhancing your personal gestures and displays them through a visual representation, according to your personal database. How it works? In situations where language becomes the ultimate barrier, gestures could be used to explain oneself. Pictogest uses a Kinect in order to capture the gestures; they are translated into visuals that vary from pictograms, pictures from personal databases and text as well. To be able to detect the gestures, the user must use the “control gestures” (start, stop, repeat, etc..) in order to give a meaning to the output. Visual instructions are shown on the user’s mobile screen. Users could choose to save visual instructions in the archive or send them to another user. Value & potential The values of Pictogest can be defined in two different categories, one for the end users and the other one for the stakeholders. In the first category, the values range from a more personalized explanation, to the possibility of saving instructions in a personal archive, to potentially learn from another human being’s experience and an enjoyable experience while using the interface. In the second category, the values range from collecting data using people’s experience that are archived and the possibility of understanding different behaviors from different cultures. Pictogest’s potential future could consist of embedding the interactive system in smartphones. It could also comprise creating a website containing the databases saved by users and using Pictogest for different purposes as well.

1. Master in Interaction Design 2013/2014
Project Leader: Claudio Moderini
Project Assistant: Nima Gazestani
Group Members: Eray Alan, Hadar Geva & Rana Mansour
25/10/13

2. Intro
Culture: manifestations
of human intellectual
achievement
collectively.
Understanding:
ability to understand &
Comprehend something.
aware of other people's
feelings.
The boundaries between the two areas still hold
a gap with the present solutions.
What is the main focus to narrow this gap?
How to interact with each other to create a better way to communicate?

3. Research

4. Research
Problems and opportunities

5. Inspiration
Yang Liu #culture
sixthsense #gesture recognition
Xu Bing #visual translation

7. Concept
When people travel, they tend to use
gestures to communicate with each other,
however some gestures are different
according to every culture.
In order to reach a middle ground,
Pictogest captures gestures and translates
them into visual elements to facilitate
the communication.
#Communication #Gesture recognition
#Visualization #Travelling

8. How it works?
Gesture
translation
with databases
Use gestures
1
3
4
5
"How to
drink Tequila?"
2
6
7
8
Generate
visual
instructions

9. How it works?
"How to drink Tequila?" - Gestures
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

10. Example
” What is this ?“
Eray Alans’s guide
)
Start
(
Stop

11. Interface

12. Interface

13. Interface

14. Interface

15. Interface

16. Interface

17. Interface

18. Interface

19. Interaction modalities
a“
tt
Rico
”
”Ricotta“

20. Interaction modalities

21. Technicality
Mobile Device:
Visualizes the gestures
Database: Filters the input
Kinect: Captures gestures
Mesh

22. Value and potential
For end users
more personalized explanation
saved instructions )archive(
learning process from person
not machine
fun & easy to use
For Stakeholders
Collecting data using
people’s experience
understanding different
behaviors from different
countries
Possible Future
pictogest website
build in device
used for other purposes