17 | “Brave NUI World” by Daniel Wigdor and Dennis Wixon
Chapter 2: The Natural User Interface
In the second chapter of their popular Book “Brave NUI World”, Wigdor and Wixon discuss the term “natural” in connection with interface/interaction design and call it “a property that is actually external to the product itself (9)”. They suggest that the element of naturalness is not about the interface but rather referring to the way users interact with and feel while using a product. They find that "the goal is to build a user experience that is natural to your user, rather than somehow intrinsically natural (13)”. Therefore, they classified their design guidelines into “Must”, “Should”, and “Could”:
Must
Create an experience that, for expert users, can feel like an extension of their body.
Create an experience that feels just as natural to a novice as it does to an expert user.
Create an experience that is authentic to the medium—do not start by trying to mimic the real world or anything else.
Build a user interface that considers context, including the right metaphors, visual indications, feedback, and input/output methods for the context.
Avoid falling into the trap of copying existing user interface paradigms.
Should
Forget your understanding of what natural means.
Could
Leverage innate talents and previously learned skills. Making an interface that mimics some other experience at which your user is already an expert is one technique for making them feel like a natural—but it’s not the only one.
Furthermore, creating a user interface that feels natural is “NOT best achieved by mimicry of some other experience, by relying on familiar metaphors, or even by directly asking users what kind of experience they would like to have. We must design, research, and engineer these user interfaces (10)”.
I really liked this chapter due to its simplicity and innovativeness. Also the idea that interfaces should feel natural, a state/condition that has to be created from scratch and cannot be copied or imitated, is quite original - at least in my opinion. What are your experiences with Natural Interface Design? Do you agree with what Wigdor and Wixon propose?
Get your copy here: http://www.gm.fh-koeln.de/~hk/lehre/sgmci/ss2015/Literatur/Wigdor_Wixon_-_Brave_NUI_World.pdf
As always: Have Fun!
