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Technological, social, and market forces have converged to create a fertile new ground for designers and engineers to plow. The price of processing speed has dropped and sensors are readily available.

Touchscreens on our mobile devices, ATMs, and airline check-in kiosks have taught us to expect to be able to manipulate things on-screen with our hands. Games have shown us we can make gestures in space to control objects on-screen. Public restrooms are, believe it or not, test laboratories for interactive gestures: placing your hands under a faucet to turn it on, waving your hands to get a paper towel, stepping into a room to turn on the lights.

All of these things have ushered in a new era of interaction design, one where gestures on a surface and in the air replace (or at least supplement) keyboards, mice, and styli. This new era, however, means those who design and develop more "traditional" systems need to grow their skills, adding in knowledge about kinesiology, sensors, ergonomics, physical computing, touchscreen technology, and new interface patterns.

See a related paper entitled:
Designing Gestural Interfaces

By:
Dan Saffer with the help of: Cem Keskin, Chong Lee Khoo and a number of other experts in Finger Tracking technologies.