The system is designed to ease cognitive load by relying on our kinaesthetic sense and the use of the body image of the user as a mnemonic frame of reference. The hardware approach is to use motion sensing in the device itself.

Gestural interfaces have been demonstrated as a successful alternative to physical and on-screen buttons on handheld devices. Typical interfaces involve shaking and tilting the device to trigger different commands. We adopt a related approach by using inertial sensing embedded within the portable device.

Instead of looking at command gestures, we propose a system where the information is stored in the body space. Moving one’s hand to the shoulder for example, can be seen as a gesture. However, we ask the user to think of the shoulder itself as the location of the information.

With this different way of thinking, a historically established memory technique called the Method of Loci can be harnessed. This technique was originally used by orators as a means to recite long narratives. They used architectural space as a mental model, associating story fragments to different rooms. In medieval Europe the method was adapted to include body space. Different body positions were used as markers to remember chants, lists or even as a computational system.

To facilitate the study of this interaction paradigm, we are currently developing an inertial sensing board that fits in the expansion slot of a PDA and tracks the motions of the device. By beginning the gesture from a common starting location, the system can compare motions to previously stored movement patterns, triggering the desired functionality.