Abstract
Natural user interfaces are becoming widespread as a focus of research in human-computer interaction. Gestural interaction is an important part of this field, but generally done by mimicry. This raises concerns such as the necessity of creating abstractions for non-imitable commands and the difficulty of finding gestures that are meaningful for a worldwide audience. Cultural backgrounds impart different meanings to gestures. In this research , we explore the concept of allowing individuals to interact with computer systems using gesture from the individual’s own culture, focusing on a software engineering approach to support this idea. The aim is to leverage the rich semantics of non-mimicry cultural gestures to expand gestural interaction to support abstract commands for instructions that do not have a matching gestural imitation. This approach also holds the potential to support the learning of gestural commands, by linking them to the cultural background of each user. The proposed software engineering approach demonstrates the feasibility of planning applications with commands in mind, not specific gestures, separating concerns between gestural identification (which can include cultural background elements) and actual commands.

Abstract
A Shamanic Interface is a recent concept that posits that the acknowledgment of culture in gestural commands may contribute to richer and more powerful user interaction with abstract concepts and complexity, but has a lack of empirical validation. Hence, this paper presents a game developed as an empirical research tool for data collection and testing on shamanic interfaces. The game is a small maze where users use gestures to control a character to reach the end of each level. The control gestures performed by each user are captured with a Leap Motion controller and recognized through Hidden Markov Models. Three command sets were implemented: Portuguese cultural gestures, Dutch cultural gestures, and a generic set. This paper evaluates the game with different users to check its playability. We conclude that the game can be used as a research data-collection tool as is, but also acknowledge several playability-related improvement recommendations.

Abstract

Abstract
This article inspects theory emerging from literature review and labora-tory work on games for cultivating creative literacy. Whether games can or cannot instil or alienate one’s creativity is debatable. On one hand, they can be risk-and stress-free exploring grounds for people to interact in ways without parallel; on another, they can disengage players from the real world. Nevertheless, they have the potential to be turned into tools for thinking, for learning and for articulating knowledge between individu-als. With that into consideration, we pinpointed two main groups that branch into four major categories: Behaviours – comprised of Attitudes and Competencies – and Conditions – comprised of Procedures and Resources – which we are structuring into a framework from which we draw hypotheses that undergo validation through play-testing sessions, in order to improve the framework.