In the first part of this blog post on the frontiers of natural user interface design I touched on the use of touch and audio. In the rest of this blog post I shall briefly look at further frontiers of natural user interface design.
Using Visual & Location Information to Control a User Interface Design
Imagine you are somewhere sightseeing and you come across a really interesting landmark. However for some reason you do not know the name of the place. In such a case a picture could literally be worth a thousand clicks. Bing Vision and Google Goggles allow users to search via a picture instead of typing text. Augmented reality apps are also another great example of using visual information in natural user interfaces. The contextual information that is served up is also further enhanced by location information. A great example of using location information to improve usability is the Berlin public transportation smartphone app. Rather than always having to know the name of the street you might happen to be in at that particular time, the app gives users the option to select current location with a single click. The upcoming Reminders iOS app allows users to set reminders to go off when leaving or arriving at a particular location in addition to the standard chronological alerts.
Gaming and Natural User Interface Design
Naturally these frontiers of natural user interface design work best in a synergistic combination thereof. The gaming industry has also been at the vanguard of natural user interface design much like how Formula One is the vanguard of automotive technology. The Wii certainly proved popular with its motion sensing control pad. It ended up outselling the much more powerful Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 leading both to introduce natural user interface controllers of their own. The Xbox’s Kinect controller is arguably the most multifaceted of the lot as it turns the users entire body into the controller. As users gesture around and shout commands. In a way the Kinect best exemplifies the possibilities that natural user interface design presents. Perhaps the changes from Command Line Interfaces to Natural User Interfaces represent a shift from us having to be aware of the nature of computers to our computers being more aware of us.