The Three Bodies Framework: A Hands-On Method for Gesture Analysis in HCI

In this 3-hour tutorial, participants will learn how to analyze hand gestures, posture, gaze, and other embodied actions as critical channels of insight in in-depth interviews. As the field adopts text-driven analysis methods including LLMs/AI, research risks building its basis primarily on language and de-emphasizing the rich, situated, and embodied dimensions of human activity. To that end, this tutorial builds on HCI traditions that attend to situated action, embodied interaction, and video-based analysis and introduces the Three Bodies framework: a practical methodology for identifying and interpreting gestures and embodied actions in video data. The framework organizes gesture analysis across three registers: (1) the thinking body, (2) the communicating body, and (3) the interactional body. Participants will engage in a structured sequence of activities in which they enact the key functions gestures carry in everyday moments, analyze gestures in video data through guided and small-group activities, synthesize insights from gesture data into clear design principles, and apply these principles to identify design opportunities and generate early-stage solutions for improved interaction design. After attending, participants will be able to identify and interpret gestures in video data and apply gesture-based analysis across HCI contexts. They will leave equipped to ground designs in the full dynamics of human activity, not only what people say but how meaning moves through the body.