Pattern recognition as a key technology for the next generation of user interfaces

It is time to go beyond the established approaches in human-computer interaction. After a serious critic of command language, menu selection, and desktop interfaces we discuss the two known approaches to overcome the obstacles and limitations: virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR). Both design strategies are diametrically opposed: VR enriches the virtual world with real humans, while AR augments the real world with intelligent features. Only with the AR design strategy humans are able to behave as much as possible in a natural way: behavior of humans in the real world with other humans and/or real world objects. Our interest in human centred design let us follow this idea. Based on the fundamental constraints of natural way of interacting we derive a set of recommendations for the next generation of user interfaces: the natural user interface (NUI). The concept of NUI is discussed in forms of general framework and several NUI-like applications. Finally, we describe the interdisciplinary research topics that must be taken into consideration for a well-designed NUI in the near future.