One of the biggest challenges in natural interface design is seeing past internalised assumptions and expectations about controlling a computer.
For example, you might consider implementing a particular hand gesture that, once learnt, allows users to open the File menu or minimise a window with the flick of a finger. But this doesn’t really qualify as a natural interaction: a natural gesture ought to have an intuitive correspondence with the goal, a good example being the “pinch to zoom” action. If someone has to expend effort on learning controls and remembering what they do then, by definition, that’s not a natural interface.
More fundamentally, the very idea of “opening the File menu” is at odds with the intent of NUI. A really natural user interface wouldn’t include any such thing…
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PC Pro (Digital) - 1 Issue, January 2025