Minimal yet integral - Designing a gestural interface

Abstract

Minimalism and simplicity have become key success factors in the post-PC era. Touchscreens have superseded physical buttons as the dominant user interface of mobile devices. Some of the industry's most successful products tightly integrate hardware, software and services into one convenient solution. All this transformed the setting in which we are designing user experiences today. This paper describes the two-year development of a gestural user interface for a mobile app. Our design process can be broken down into five basic principles: Find a tangible metaphor, understand your hardware, care for your content, reduce it to the essence, and if you feel you can do better, iterate. Finally some yet unsolved issues are described that may impede the design of truly natural interfaces on a fundamental level. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.