CHI 2018 SIG: Redefine Natural User Interface

In CHI 2018, Paul Fu from Alibaba Group, James Landay from Stanford University, Michael Nebeling from University of Michigan, Haipeng Mi from Tsinghua University, and Chen Zhao from Alibaba Group cohosted the Natural UI special interest group session. Over 50 researchers, designers, and practitioners participated. Three topics were discussed during the session: 

  • Definition of Natural User Interface; 
  • Scenarios, use cases, and opportunities for natural user interface; 
  • Research framework and technologies needed to be developed. 

During the discussion, we realized that defining the problem itself is a very challenging task. After 1.5 hours of discussion, debate, and sharing. Here is the proposed report. Feel free to comment and make suggestion on improvements.

Definition

Natural UI is a human computer interaction system, which can leverage human’s natural perception, attention, cognition, and emotion capabilities.

Characteristics of Natural UI: 

  • Natural capabilities could be quite different from individual to individual and from group to group. For example, using a pen might not be a natural capability for an un-educated population.
  • Natural UI should be adaptive based on scenario, environment, culture, and user’s natural capabilities
  • Natural UI should be able to handle ambiguities, which is a natural characteristic of human interaction.
  • Natural UI should be able to learn and improve over time

Group Exercise Notes

In One Word

  • Cross Contextual
  • Biometrics
  • Peripheral-less
  • Unbounded
  • Tangible
  • Instinctive 

Examples

  • VR & AR
  • Kinect
  • Touch
  • Mirror Reflection

Most Natural

  • Automatic doors
  • Amazon Go
  • Touch Screen
  • Motion Sensing
  • Auto lock

Unnatural Experience 

  •  TSA system in American Airports
  • Beam tele-presence
  • Voice interface in public
  • Forced syntax
  • Programming
  • Snapchat
  • Amazon Alexa for non-native speakers 
  • Musical instruments

Natural UI Usage Scenarios 

  • Learning physical objects (touch, smell)
  • A company or friendly assistant while cooking 
  • Exploring data with speech, gesture, touch
  • Share trip experience (smell of Yellowstone)
  • Remark the story in my dream
  • Chat robot
  • Prepare a meeting room at workplace using voice command
  • Order pizza with voice & screen 
  • Haptic output or rendering
  • Eye tracking for object selection 

Technologies Needed

  • NLP, vision, gesture, typing, and multi-modal interaction technology
  •  Contextual
  • Understanding ambiguity 
  • Social and/or cultural naturalness
  • Adaptive natural UI of the person’s capabilities
  • Learn naturalness from users
  • Coordinated multi-modal interfaces
  • Conscious and subconscious level gestures
  • Ask vs. prompt balance
  • Speech more natural
  • Simplicity and robust
  • Ambient display 
  • System with the capability to learn

This SIG will continue after the initial meeting. We can help to build a multidisciplinary network to encourage communication and collaboration for research and practice. We created a Linkedin Group. The URL is https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13594488. Through the LinkedIn groups, we can bring together more universities, research institutes, and companies to participate. We expect the effort will promote more awareness of natural user interface, which will eventually help advance the field.

AliExpress Receives an “Editors’ Choice” Award on Google Play

The Alibaba Group Int. UED team is thrilled to announce that the AliExpress app has received an “Editors’ Choice” award from the Google Play store. There are over 1.5 million apps available on Google Play, but only a small and very selective number of apps have received the Editors’ Choice distinction.   

This is the second distinction that the AE app has received from Google Play—previously achieving a “Top Developer” award. 

Google Play

On the international UED team we believe that Google Play is the premier platform for Android apps.

With over one billion active users from over 190 countries and territories, success on Google Play is critical to growing your app in markets around the word.

Editors’ Choice

Editors’ Choice is a highly selective collection of the best apps on the platform. Selection is based on a combination of product quality, user interface, long-term popularity, innovative features and compatibility with Android technology, among other factors.

The Road to Editors’ Choice

It took over 40 revisions to develop the current version of the AE app, but after the official 4.0 version was released over 8,000 users provided feedback in two days—93% providing a five-star raiding.

For our team, updating AliExpress to adhere to Google’s implementation of Material Design was an important step.

Material Design is a visual language that synthesizes the classic principles of design standards.

With thousands of product listings across dozens of categories, applying Material Design helped our users more easily navigate the AE platform. The intuitive and organized approach of a Material Design-driven interface also created a more efficient shopping experience.    

The below image shows a visual breakdown of how the AE team incorporated Material Design into our product listing pages.

AliExpress Growth

AliExpress continues to grow in markets around the world, and now supports 18 languages with users in 230 countries and territories.

We will continue to innovate and develop the AE platform, focusing on our users and partners as the source of innovation.

Many thanks to Google Play for the distinction!

AliExpress: Five Steps to Going Global on Mobile

How do you create a mobile experience for millions of distinctive users in dozens of different countries? It takes more than simply translating content into multiple languages. 

During Alibaba’s 2015 11.11 Shopping Festival, the AliExpress mobile app became the #1 ranked shopping app in 121 countries and regions, according to Google Play. Since then, the AliExpress app has been steadily growing strong user bases worldwide. 

Here are five steps in our mobile globalization journey:

1.    Mobile Strategy

Not all users are quick to download apps.

When entering a new market, offering both an app and a mobile site can help attract a wider audience.

This strategy, however, can sometimes result in a user split—pictured above—where some users are on the app and some are on the mobile site.

If your company is in a leading market position, chances are that the majority of your users have downloaded your app. But if your app is not ranked in a top three market position, you might have a significant percentage of users who are only on the mobile site.  

Because the long-term goal is to drive traffic to your app, once your brand has been established you can begin migrating users through the tactics in step two:

2. Optimize Technology

Work closely with your mobile browser to create an identical experience on the mobile app and mobile site. 

For AliExpress, developers worked closely with teams from Google to capitalize on the power of Progressive Web Apps. These tools enable your mobile site to have the same design and functionality as an app. Overtime, your mobile site users will migrate to your app for the convenience it offers.  

It’s also important to provide incentives to download your app. The AliExpress mobile site advertises exclusive deals for mobile app users only (see above). 

3.    Localization

Local and Global

Localizing user experience is essential to keeping your services relevant in markets around the world. For example, on Alibaba’s marketplaces in China, user experience and design are based on location.

For users in Northern China, artwork above reflects colder weather, and the app’s shopping recommendations focus on winter products. In the south, the app design and shopping recommendations reflect a warmer climate.

Similarly, AliExpress in Russia features local sellers. Localization increases user engagement while promoting local merchants. The Russian app also integrates Russian social media, offering users the option of signing in with their VK accounts (a Russian social network), or posting directly to local social media channels.

4.    Personalization

Personalizing your app’s design for each individual user optimizes user experience. For new users on AliExpress, user experience focuses on product descriptions and information—features that aim to educate the user and build consumer confidence in the marketplace.  

For long-term users, however, services and design are informed by user behavior. When a long-term user opens the AliExpress app, the design focuses on shopping recommendations based on individual purchase history. Harnessing this data drives user engagement. 

Long-term users are also offered exclusive coupons based on their purchase history, making their experience even more customized.               

5.    Help your Partners Succeed

When you discover a winning strategy or develop innovative technology, it’s important to share this information throughout your business ecosystem. 

When localization and personalization led to increased customer engagement on AliExpress, these strategies were shared with merchants so they could customize their own storefronts and better connect with users. In the future, AliExpress plans to provide merchants with multiple customizable storefronts to further personalize the shopping experience based on the user’s location.

Data-Driven Design + Human Centered Design

Alibaba’s motto is “customer first.” Putting this motto into action requires leveraging big data to localize, personalize and drive engagement. The combination of data-driven design and human centered design is a winning formula.