Welcome to the NUI Blog!

This blog is to document our graduate design work at the University of Kansas (KU) relating to Natural User Interfaces (NUI). The actual timeline of the class will run for the Spring 2012 semester, but chances are this may turn into a thesis or extended project that spans far beyond that. Our immediate task is to fearlessly dive into this and share our progress here.

In case you are wondering what we mean by the term “Natural User Interface” or “NUI” the following video may clear it up:


Essentially, we will be using a Microsoft Kinect to allow a user to control systems via gestures, by the end of the semester we hope to have a functional prototype.

This NUI project will be framed around controlling and monitoring various systems at the Center for Design Research (CDR) located on KU’s West Campus. The building was opened last year and features solar panels, a wind turbine, an electric-vehicle charging station, electrochromic windows, and several other innovative environmentally-conscious systems, many of which will be discussed through subsequent blog postings.

Below: Center for Design Research at KU

(Additional information on the CDR can be found here: http://kudesign.wordpress.com/about-2/)

Also probably worth mentioning is that last semester some of us worked on innovating the user experience for energy use in the home, the framing of this semester's NUI project is loosely inspired by that project. The following scenario was from our home energy project last semester, it was filmed at the CDR and shows a quick example of a simple interaction to encourage a passive energy user to become more attentive:



In the next blog post we will cover some of the equipment we are dealing with at the CDR.