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From: jhc@iris.brown.edu (James H. Coombs)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Menu Interaction Techniques
Message-ID: <16179@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 25 Sep 89 16:54:28 GMT
References: <2722@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Organization: IRIS
Lines: 19

In article <2722@trantor.harris-atd.com> chuck@melmac.harris-atd.com
(Chuck Musciano) writes:

> I contended that each menu usage would require a visual
> search and explicit select action, making it harder to use.

I have seen no research on this, so I will offer an observation.  I 
frequently find that I select the wrong item or no item at all when
I attempt to select from a menu without focusing my vision on the
desired item.  I have not experienced the equivalent of touch typing
with menu selection.  D. A. Norman is right on target: menus are
optimized for selection but pessimized for performance.

--Jim

Dr. James H. Coombs
Senior Software Engineer, Research
Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship
Box 1952, Brown University, Providence, RI 01912