Some time ago, Laurent Salat (@LaurentMT), who works in the R&D department of Tactineo, and member of the NUI group, wrote a paper (French version) about NUI development and suggested best practices specific to NUI development, called the “Bottom-Up Approach”.
Thanks to Joshua Blake (@joshblake), who understood the general concepts and wanted to share them with the rest of the NUI development and design community, he called out via Twitter, for the help of someone who was fluent in both English and French to translate Laurent’s paper. I volunteered, and after a few revisions, we now have an English translation available for those who cannot read French. I would also strongly recommend that you check out Josh’s book, Multi-Touch on Windows - NUI Development with WPF and Silverlight, either when it gets released, or by getting in early through the Manning Early Access Program (MEAP), where chapters 1, 2, 4-7 are presently available.
The paper is a short, but invaluable read. It illuminates and brings forth concepts and best practices which are probably nagging at you to be done, without quite having been able to put your finger on it. In short, if you are designing or developing a Multi-Touch or any other type of NUI application, using the Bottom-Up approach should definitely help your users become more adept at using your system, and have a better time doing so, with less frustration, though the goal should be zero frustration!