Xref: utzoo comp.cog-eng:551 comp.windows.misc:574
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watcgl!lrbartram
From: lrbartram@watcgl.waterloo.edu (lyn bartram)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Using kinesthetic memory for human interfaces
Message-ID: <4989@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Date: 25 Jun 88 03:47:27 GMT
References: <3535@pdn.uucp>  <4988@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: lrbartram@watcgl.waterloo.edu (lyn bartram)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 37

There have been several discussions about the proposed advantages of "pie", 
or radial selection, menu systems lately in various newsgroups ( comp.cog-eng
and comp.windows.misc are two that come to mind ).  A lot of attention has
been paid to the fact (? as yet not *completely* proven) that kinesthetic
memory is a powerful aid to menu selection, often more effective than simple
conscious recognition of that which is to be selected.

I'm not debating this: we have been using some form of radial menus in various
applications in our lab for several years, and as a user myself, i find them
great.  However, the use of these tools bring a whole lot of interesting
questions to the fore : what are the most effective selection mechanisms, for
example? Slide only? Slide and click? Depress, slide and release? Double
click? At a single level, this might seem trivial, but as soon
as one wishes to take advantage of cascaded menus, it is no longer so 
immaterial.  I have noticed a claim that using radial selection in cascaded
form is far preferable to using regular popup/cascaded menus, but i am a
bit dubious about this, and would like to see some solid empirical evidence....
after all, the big bonus about radial selection, in layman's terms, is that
one uses direction rather than distance or position  to get to the selection 
point.  It seems to me that cascading imposes some of the distance constraint.

Another point is  that of form: as i mentioned a few months ago, is a circle
preferable to a {hex/oct/non}agon ?  How big does the "dead" area in the
centre have to be?  One of the applications in our lab, a paint program,
uses an octagonal( well, it may be hexagonal by now) menu, since this
means that each selectable space is big enough to serve also as a form of
*slider*:  when the selections are colours, the user can "stir" the cursor on
the selection clockwise for more saturation, and counter-clockwise for less, 
providing a very nice and intuitive interaction technique.

I know that there is some very pertinent work in ergonomics studies of
instrument positions on control panels, et al,  to do with immediate access 
to information and selection of particular tools.  Can anyone point me to
some specific references? It appears that the time has come for some
rigorous testing of radial selection techniques, and it would be nice to
know what previous studies in related fields have to tell us about the
use of kinesthetic memory in system design.