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The Frontiers of Natural User Interface Design
According to Wikipedia, a Natural User Interface is when a UI is
effectively invisible, or rather becomes invisible with successive
learned interactions. These interactions are intended to feel natural as
users operate the user interface design. Natural User Interface
represent the third major paradigm in user interface design. The first
user interface designs featured Command Line Interfaces which are
codified and strictly text-based UIs typified by operating systems such
as MS-DOS. Today Command Line Interfaces have mostly given way to
Graphical User Interfaces but can still be accessed for scripting or
other advanced purposes. Graphical User Interfaces use visual indicators
as metaphors rather than text lines and are the way we interact with
most modern operating systems today. Graphical User Interfaces allowed
users to access computing without the steep learning curve of Command
Line Interfaces as users could explore through trial and error. With
Natural User Interfaces the learnability of a user interface design is
further enhanced by using a UI in ways that feel natural. In the rest of
this article I shall talk about the frontiers of Natural User Interface
design.
Using Touch/ Gestures to Control a User Interface Design
The iPhone is perhaps the best proponent of using our sense of touch
to control a user interface design. Unlike the indirect touch of a mouse
using our own fingers in gestures was one of the standout features of
the iPhone when it debuted. Pinch-to-zoom and swiping have now become
such a common way to manipulate the user interface design of touchscreen
devices that it is hard to imagine they didn't exist before the very
first iPhone. Using touch to control user interface designs has even
graduated from smartphones and tablets to desktop operating systems such
as the latest OS X, which implements iOS gestures via a trackpad. The Microsoft Surface is effectively a table-sized tablet that follows the same paradigm.
Using Audio to Control a User Interface Design
Using audio as a way of controlling a user interface design
is nothing new. For example, the aforementioned iPhone has a voice
control option for accessibility purposes. The Dragon speech recognition
software package is perhaps the vanguard of using audio to control user
interface designs by allowing users to transcribe speech into text,
search or input commands into a user interface design. With the use of
audio Dragon software features minimalistic user interface designs as
less actual text is needed to express the range of options available to
users. The main challenge with audio as a frontier in Natural User
Interface design is not the recording of the audio but in making sense
of the audio so that users can speak as if they were talking to another
person. This is still a very big challenge for NUIs.
The Importance of Learnability for User Interface Design
As the computing landscape evolves to include an ever more
sophisticated range of products and form factors the usability of the
software and websites we use is continually being reviewed and refined. A
crucial component of user interface design is usability. Simply put, a user interface design
with poor usability is going to frustrate users and drive them to seek
alternatives as quickly as possible. Another important factor tied to
usability is learnability. After all, there is always a learning curve
associated with every new user interface design we come across with varying degrees of steepness.
For the longest time building a user interface design
meant optimizing usability for one particular dimension, if I may call
it that. This dimension, of course, is the venerable desktop. Nowadays
there are smartphones and tablets to contend to, all of which need a
unique user interface design by virtue of touchscreens and other natural
user interfaces as the favored mode of input rather than, say, the
mouse. This stratification of user interface designs across devices
means that not every UI design element can be instantly usable. At some
point users are going to have to learn how to use it. Learnability in
this case means making decisions on which features to bury in advanced
settings and which ones should be on the default user interface design
(this is what users see when they use a website or app for the first
time). There are a couple of things to consider when optimizing a
website or software application's user interface design for learnability:-
- Importance – How critical is your website or software application to a user? Users are far more likely to spend time learning a user interface design if it is crucial to their workflow, for example. One has to look no further than, say, Photoshop or Final Cut Pro. Both are complicated software applications yet everyday users spend time learning how to get the most out of the complex user interface design to fulfill their aims.
- Frequency – We humans are creatures of habit. Despite the countless number of websites and software applications out there we tend to have a core nucleus of favorites that we revisit again and again. The more we use a user interface design the more quickly we learn to use it, with each repeat visit making us use it all the more efficiently.
- Cost – The more someone pays for an application the more time they are going to invest in learning how to use it. This could have something to do with the Value Attribution theory whereby we assume something expensive is worth our investment and the resultant heightened expectations help us persevere with a user interface design longer. This, however, is no justification for charging exorbitant prices!
- Alternatives – The number, and quality, of alternative tools available to users also determines how long they spend learning a user interface design. The more unique or the higher quality inherent in your website or application the more likely users will stick by you. However, be sure to fix all usability issues before a better alternative crops up to tempt your users away.
- Simplicity – For the sake of learnability it is important to keep the default user interface design as simple as possible. Jamming every possible feature in the default user interface design only serves to make it appear to require more time to get to know. This can put off potential users who may seek a simpler solution elsewhere.