Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!mcsun!sunic!draken!ianf
From: ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Menu Interaction Techniques
Message-ID: <1798@draken.nada.kth.se>
Date: 27 Sep 89 22:25:57 GMT
References: <2722@trantor.harris-atd.com> <16179@brunix.UUCP> <618@cs.yale.edu>
Reply-To: ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman)
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Lines: 26

In article <618@cs.yale.edu> engelson@cs.yale.edu (Sean Engelson) writes:
>                                            Regular menus require
> search, and precise positioning, while pie-menus require only
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  Let us not forget the hierarchical menus either - where regular
  drop-down menus usually make use of eye-muscle coordination in
  one dimension only (up-down) the hierarchical ones require another
  one - the left-right one.  The coordination-load (for want of a better
  word) of the "menu-ee" grows exponentially with each dimension - ie
  a one-branch hierarchical menu is in all probability 4 times as hard
  to select from as a standard oe-dimensional one.

  IMHO that pretty much rules the hierarchicals out of any serious
  consideration when designing user interfaces.

  As to the question of fast vs. movable/ context-dependent menus
  I'd like to hear some comparisons of selection and menu-orientation
  process from someone with Macintosh experience, who is now working
  with the NeXT (cube? computer?).  As I understand the NeXT menus are
  of unusual design being, first, two-tiered (ie, two columns of square
  aligned "buttons" constitute a menu) and, second, freely movable on
  the screen.
-- 
----
------ ianf@nada.kth.se/ @sekth.bitnet/ uunet!nada.kth.se!ianf
----
--