Development of a natural user interface for mobile music players
Abrar Aamer · Tampere University Institutional Repository (Tampere University) · 2014
Mobile phones have been used as portable music players for a long time now. There is a growing interest in the use of haptics, NUIs (Natural User Interfaces) and gamification (game like mechanics) in the mobile applications but, unfortunately, there are no music players that implement one or more of these concepts effectively. The success of aforementioned design philosophies has created an interesting opportunity for me to develop an application and test how the use of these concepts could increase user satisfaction and provide an overall better and natural experience. I developed a small music application for Android phones that used a wind chime metaphor for a music player application. The beads hanging by the threads played music when touched and provided visual and auditory feedback. The whole interaction felt more interesting and real than WIMP based interfaces commonly used in other music players. The user testing reveals that the majority of the users liked the new interface more as the experience was more natural and engaging. The results demand more research into this area and development of a better prototype.