Giving the users a hand : towards touchless hand gestures for the desktop.

Touchless, mid-air, gesture-based interactions have recently moved out of laboratories and Hollywood movies and into the hands of users. There is little difference in the interaction style and techniques used today from that of the 1980's, despite advances in the technology enabling this interaction. For this interaction to achieve mainstream popularity, and to be as ubiquitous as the keyboard or the mouse, common problems such as the "Gorilla Arm Syndrome'' will have to be addressed. Additionally, the common use-case such as gestural navigation, selection, and manipulation will need to be improved and eventually standardized. This thesis presents solutions to existing problems and introduces possible interaction techniques that allows users to perform the actions above. This is expected to pave the way for touchless mid-air hand gestures to be a ubiquitous form of interaction on the desktop.