Multimodal interaction

Multimodal interaction referred to in the computer science forms of interaction between people and computers, in which multiple modalities are used. The development of multimodal applications is a research area of human- computer interaction. When interacting in various form of input, for example, language, gestures, touch screens but also keyboard and mouse can be used. Common speech, sound, or haptic feedback is used in addition to graphical displays for output.

The aim of the development of applications that support multimodal interaction is to make the interaction between people and computers more natural than with unimodal applications. It is often attempted to imitate the interaction between human and real environments. An early example of a multimodal application has been developed by Richard Bolt. The system allows the user to select virtual objects by gesture and speech input to be selected by commands.