What is an NUI ?

In the most recent event, we witnessed a big commotion due to temporary services shut down on several social media platform. Also, the hype for the new release of certain smartphone where people wait in line to get their hand on the new model. As extreme as it was, it is no longer an argument that advancement of technology is what drive most of the activities in the society today. In reality, the product or application had always been the popular one instead of the technology being invented. For example, NUI, the subject of our post today. What is an NUI ?

NUI is neither a new word nor new invention. We had been using it for over a decade now without even realising. So, what is an NUI ? NUI stands for natural user interface, a system for human-computer interaction where a user operates by intuitive actions associated to natural, everyday human behaviour. In simplest way of explaining, for instance, the touch-screen interface that we uses today on the smart phone, television screen, tablet screen and much more.

Now, that we gather the idea of what is an NUI, let’s dig dipper into it. The application of NUI does not centered only around touch. It can also apply to any natural behaviour which include speech recognition, gesture recognition and brain-machine interfaces. Touch screen, as we all are familiar with, allows the users to interact more intuitively when selecting programs, files or applications in a device. Speech recognition lets the users to use voice command to interact with the systems while gesture recognition detects users motion and translate them into instruction. The example of the application of the use of gesture recognition can be demonstrated in Wii sports, a type of sport simulation video game by Nintendo. Brain-machine interfaces, on the other hand, interpret neural signals into actions.

In summary, the answer to what is NUI might be ambiguous as the field of study of NUI broadens as the technology as well as the researches advance. Nevertheless, it is a technology that we will accept involuntarily as it is designed to improve our experience when communicating with the ‘digital world’.

“The graphical user interface (GUI) where most of the application developers follow and you use today, may or may not be the best natural user interface (NUI) based on the modern definition and technology advancement. It is important for you as the developer to understand the modern technology and apply it to your current application, to avoid being classified by most of the users as being outdated. In particular so for those applications that operate with software maintenance or ongoing subscription. Since the user keeps paying for it, will it make sense to update it for the modern use case, rather than look like a design for the very old operating system interface.” added by Vincent Lim, E-SPIN solution consultant for the subject matter expert (SME).

E-SPIN Group in the enterprise ICT solutions supply, consulting, project management, training and maintenance for multinational corporations and government agencies across the region E-SPIN do business. Feel free to contact E-SPIN for your enterprise digital transformation initiative, project requirement and inquiry.