I will be presenting at the upcoming mLearning DevCon conference on October 5th in the New York Metro area, on the topic of Design Fundamentals for Natural User Interfaces.
As a sneak peak, I wanted to touch on the topic of touch vs. natural user interface, (NUI), often times thought to be one and the same.
One of the underlying concepts of NUI design is the idea of the invisible interface. To explain what I mean by this, consider the following. On a traditional laptop screen, we are used to interacting with metaphors such as file folders, desktops, and recycle bins. We know that in order to “throw away” a file we drag it to the recycle bin using a track-pad or mouse.
If you want to throw away a document in the natural world, you simply crumple it up, and take your best shot at the trash can. There is no interface, or intermediary that you need to interact with in order to throw away the paper. You just crumple it up and throw it. On the other hand, in the first example you need to know the “rules” for interacting with information on your screen. Even seemingly simple things like throwing away a document are not so simple. Just think about the differences between the Mac and a PC. If you have been using a PC your whole life, you will need to re-learn how to do basic functions on a Mac, and vice-versa.
The NUI occupies a place in-between these two interaction models. A NUI, at its best, is mostly invisible to a user. The methods for interacting with on-screen content are self-evident and do not require users to learn, so much as explore. Mimicking the natural world of direct manipulation using things like your hands and voice, and providing just enough visual scaffolding to reveal how a user can interact with the content, are some ways the NUI bridges the gap between natural and digital environments.
While NUI design principals are particularly applicable to touch-based interfaces, they are not a given. In addition to considerations unique to a touch environment, good NUI design requires that we design around the desired user experience and devise methods for interaction that are largely self-evident and make us feel like naturals within a very short time of interacting with the system.
Hope to see you at mLearning DevCon on October 5th to explore this topic in more detail!