I've been studying the assortment of alternative user interface technologies that go beyond Command Line Interface (CLI) and Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers (WIMP). These include the following:- Touch User Interfaces
- Voice User Interfaces
- Gestural User Interfaces
- Organic User Interfaces
- Natural User Interfaces
- Augmented Reality
- Automatic Identification
The biggest similarity among these alternative user interface technologies seems to be direct interaction with information, but that doesn't always apply. Another possibility is "invisibility" a term that is used a lot with NUI, but seems like an ill fit to me. What's so invisible about touch screens? In fact, the only similarity I can find is that these user interface technologies are more technically advanced than CLI or WIMP.
I did try to apply the Tangible User Interface (TUI), Natural User Interface (NUI) and Organic User Interface (OUI) definitions, such as they exist, but these are less than appropriate labels. For one thing there is nothing natural or organic about these alternative user interface technologies. Second, including speech as one of the UI technologies makes it less than tangible. Also, isn't the keyboard and mouse used in CLI and WIMP tangible?
So what label do I apply? I don't know exactly, but for now I'm calling them the "X User Interfaces" or XUI. Something I blogged about a while back. I could refer them collectively as the "Advanced User Interfaces" because of the fact that they are more advanced than CLI and WIMP. I suppose I could call them the 5th Generation UIs, where mechanical, command-line, text, and WIMP make up the first 4 generations.
Another label I've considered seriously is Magical User Interface in reference to the famous quote from Arther C. Clarke
As Arther C. Clarke said:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
I've posted about magic as a metaphor for user interface design before. Does that make sense, or is it too whimsical? Is Advanced User Interfaces too academic? Should I adopt Natural User Interfaces because that's what the industry trend seems to be? Should we stick with XUI? What's your opinion?
Update June 23, 2009
I've wrestled with this long enough I think (far longer than the one day since this post was originally published) and I've decided to use Natural User Interface as the umbrella term for all these non-traditional UI technologies. I don't think there much that is natural about them but NUI seems to be the term that is gaining the most traction when it comes to describing these things and so I see no compelling reason to advance a different term - any label you give this new type UI would probably be just as arbitrary. At least NUI has some traction.
4 comments:
Richard,
You're too hung up on buzzwords. Don't worry about the names, worry about what the interfaces do or don't do for users.
But for now, I'd say just stick with Natural User Interface. It can encompass all the different modalities.
What I find most interesting about all of these new areas is that they are starting to focus on 'interconnecting' the computer with the real world.
It used to be that we 'attached' peripherals to our machines so that we could interact with them. In a real sense the machines were separated from the world around them, with a thin bridge between the two.
Now, with a lot of these new ideas and technologies, the 'machines' are reaching out from behind their walls and interacting directly with the world around them. It's a huge change and one that will probably be one of the most significant technological changes of the early 21st century. And it's just beginning.
In that sense, I love the term 'natural' since it implies that these new things are all rooted in the 'natural' world around us. A link between the natural world, and an artificial one of our own creating.
Maybe you could consider calling these something like 'natural interactions'? Some term that is bigger and broader than just 'interface'.
So long as computers are well-confined to their little boxes, they will not live up to their promise of being ubiquitous.
Paul.
Paul,
Excellent analysis of the differences between what we have now and what NUI (I've kind of settled on NUI for now) offers.
In fact, I think its an excellent insight and one that I had been trying to pin down myself without much luck. I love the way you express it and will be thinking a lot more about it in the coming days. The idea that today computers are isolated and must be hooked together vs. computers that integrate into our daily lives seamlessly is really powerful.
Great comment!
Richard
Thanks. It was that demo you posted a while ago of the "mud tub" that really hit the point home the strongest for me. Something unique and wonderful is definitely happening if you're playing in a tub of mud AND you're interacting with a computer. It's quite the fusion.
97 things we want (or expect) from our computers?
Paul.
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