This work focuses on obtaining realistic human hand models that are suitable for manipulation tasks. A 24 degrees of freedom (DoF) kinematic model of the human hand is defined. The model reasonably satisfies realism requirements in simulation and movement. To achieve realism, intra- and inter-finger constraints are obtained. The design of the hand model with 24 DoF is based upon a morphological, physiological and anatomical study of the human hand. The model is used to develop a gesture recognition procedure that uses principal components analysis (PCA) and discriminant functions. Two simplified hand descriptions (nine and six DoF) have been developed in accordance with the constraints obtained previously. The accuracy of the simplified models is almost 5% for the nine DoF hand description and 10% for the six DoF hand description. Finally, some criteria are defined by which to select the hand description best suited to the features of the manipulation task.