With smartphone and tablets, users interact with applications with gestures. There are a lot of different kinds of gestures and each has a well defined name. In 2010, Luke Wroblewski has made a great work to classify all of these gestures in his “Touch Gesture Reference Guide” article that can be found here : http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1071 .

Even better, he gives some details of the support of these gestures on OS platforms like iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Obviously, article is old but content is always actual and I think the following infographic can be great to keep in mind how users can interact with applications :

gestures

The list is rather long :

  • Tap : Briefly touch surface with fingertip.
  • Double Tap : Rapidly touch surface twice with fingertip
  • Drag : Move fingertip over surface without losing contact
  • Flick : Quickly brush surface with fingertip
  • Pinch : Touch surface with two fingers and bring them closer together
  • Spread : Touch surface with two fingers and move them apart
  • Press : Touch surface for extended period of time
  • Press and Tap : Press surface with one finger and briefly touch surface with second finger
  • Press and Drag : Press surface with one finger and move second finger over surface without losing contact
  • Rotate : Touch surface with two fingers and move them in a clockwise or counter clockwise direction

It will be very useful when you will choose which gestures you need in your applications. Indeed, most people don’t want to learn new ways to interact with their mobile devices. They prefer to use classical gestures that already work. So, keep these gestures in mind and be simple and relevant.