What is NUI?

Forget cryptic buttons and fiddly menus-Steve Cassidy explores a more intuitive approach to user interactions

- Steve Cassidy

I know what a UI is, but what does the "N" stand for? New?

In a sense it means the very opposite. What we're talking about here is the idea of a "natural user interface" - one that aims to get away from the modern conventions of computer interaction, and to instead provide more organic ways of working with technology, closer to the ways in which humans communicated and collaborated for thousands of years before the PC came into our lives.

Is this some futuristic sci-fi vision?

It's not as far away as you might think. My old 2001 Mercedes had a pretty decent voice-driven satnav, and today's game consoles and VR systems respond not only to button presses but to waves, swipes and shouts. The idea goes beyond consumer electronics, of course: I've seen surgeons in the operating theatre gesticulating at a camera, to control computer systems without contaminating their sterile gowns and gloves.

Surely gestures are too ambiguous for issuing precise commands?

Gestures are but one element of NUI; voice interactions are another. A fully realised natural user interface might be able to read the user's whole-body communication, interpret the context and respond intelligently, enabling users to initiate complex operations with ease.

So what's a good example of a natural interface?