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 ---- --