A local developer and startup co-founder in Atlanta has created an intuitive gesture language for touch devices called Gesturish.
Jared Malan, co-founder of We&CO, partner at Standard Code and web development instructor at General Assembly, was on a run when he came up with Gesturish. “I was listening passively to a podcast. The host said something about a way to make communication more accessible—I don’t really remember. I wasn’t paying attention so I came up with my own, more accessible, communication method—a Morse code like solution for our increasingly small devices.” Malan said.
That was a year ago but he had never been able to let the idea go. He added, “I get kind of excited when I think about being able to understand a message through touch. I think it’s reasonable to believe that we will be able to communicate through haptic or ‘taptic’ touch in the future.”
Armed with his belief, and a determination to develop his own gesture-based language, Malan started to learn Morse code while he drove around in his car. “Morse code is pretty cool, but it has a steep learning curve. With just two input signals, timing becomes critical, but the speed of the signals are the biggest challenge a new user of Morse code faces. I thought of a solution that doesn’t require precise timing,” he explains.
Everyone these days, even young kids, have developed gesture skills – even unintentionally. With only 5 different input signals – swipe in all directions and tap – a gesture language user can spell words, use punctuation and use numbers with only a few gestures.
Malan is presently working on an Apple Watch and iPhone app scheduled to launch later in the year.
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