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Way back in 2006, when he’d just published what was to go on to become his very successful book, Designing for Interaction, Dan Saffer came out to Sydney for Web Directions South 06 and presented a much loved workshop of the same name. Since then Dan has moved more and more into touch screens and interactive devices, starting his own company, Kicker Studios, specialising in this area, and recently finishing a new O’Reilly book, Designing Gestural Interfaces.

Last week he presented “Tap is the New Click” at Web Directions North. Check out full video of the version of this presentation he recently gave at NYC IxDA.

Even though the technology has been around for decades, only now are we starting to see mass production and adoption of touchscreen and gestural devices for the public. Jeff Han’s influential 2006 TED demonstration of his multitouch system, followed by the launches of Nintendo’s Wii, Apple’s iPhone, and Microsoft Surface, have announced a new era of interaction design, one where gestures in space and touches on a screen will be as prominent as pointing and clicking.

But how do you create products for this new paradigm? While most of us know how to design desktop and web applications, what do you need to know to design for interactive gestures?

This introduction to designing gestural interfaces will cover the basics: usability and ergonomics; a brief history of the technology; some elemental patterns of use; prototyping and documenting; and how to communicate that a gestural interface is present to users.