RITE with a Purpose

This chapter explains the RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation) method, which is uniquely suited to the design and development of touch and gestural interfaces. Touch and gestural interfaces lack the conventions of more traditional interfaces like the GUI. They also must meet a higher bar; that is, they must feel natural and fun, and encourage the learning of a new interaction paradigm. Making an interface “natural” requires more research effort and design thinking than making an unnatural interface or mimicking a conventional interface like the GUI. Given these challenges and the perpetual commercial requirement to make progress quickly, the RITE method is a natural choice. The RITE method is applied to two core challenges in creating the NUI interface using touch and gesture. The first challenge was what feedback and feed forward should be provided to communicate the metaphor effectively. The second challenge was what metaphor should be chosen for the interface.