Mayhew's Book 1992 (chapt. 4)

Designing Menu Systems

Menu structure

• Match menu structure to task structure

• Provide users with an easy way to tailor menu structure to task structure.

• Minimize menu hierarchy depth at the expense of breadth.

• On full-screen text menus, present menu choices vertically.

• Consider pie menus for one- or two-level mouse-driven menu hierarchies with short menu choice lists, especially when the choices lend themselves well to a circular, pie format.

• Choosing graying out (or even deletion) of inactive menu items: depends on user experience and input device. {but try to maintain consistency}

• Create logical, distinctive, and mutually exclusive semantic categories with clear meaning.

• Menu choice labels should be brief, consistent in grammatical style and placement, and matched with corresponding menu titles.

• Consider menu choice descriptors if choice labels may not be clear and unambiguous. (Look-ahead, Microhelp, Tool-tips)

Menu choice ordering

• Order choice labels according to:
  • convention;
  • frequency of use;
  • order of use;
  • categorical or function groups; and/or
  • alphabetical order;
  depending on the user and task variables.

Menu choice selection

• On keyboard-driven menu systems:
  • Cursor selection is acceptable for shorter menus, especially if use is expected to be casual.
  • For longer menus and/or for high-frequency users, mnemonically lettered section codes are preferred if practical.

• On pointer-driven (e.g., mouse) interfaces, providing a pointer cursor selection mechanism is recommended.

• Provide menu selection defaults when possible.

• Distinguish between "Choose one" and "Choose many" menus.

• Provide menu selection feedback.

Menu invocation

• Reserve pop-up or user-invoked menus for high-frequency users and situations where screen real-estate is scarce. Permanent menus are preferred.

Menu navigation

• Establish conventions for menu design and apply them consistently on all menu screens within a system.

• Consider the use of context labels, menu maps, and place markers as navigation aids in complex menu systems.

• Consider the use of direct access through type-ahead, menu screen names, and user-created macros to facilitate navigation for expert users.

• Facilitate backward navigation.