1 / 27

Menu Selection, Form Fillin, Dialog Boxes, and Fitts's Law

Menu Selection, Form Fillin, Dialog Boxes, and Fitts's Law. Lecture 8. Task-Related Organization. "The primary goal for menu, form-fillin, and dialog-box designers is to create a sensible, comprehensible, memorable, and convenient organization relevant to the user's task.". Single Menus.

frye
Download Presentation

Menu Selection, Form Fillin, Dialog Boxes, and Fitts's Law

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Menu Selection, Form Fillin, Dialog Boxes, and Fitts's Law Lecture 8

  2. Task-Related Organization "The primary goal for menu, form-fillin, and dialog-box designers is to create a sensible, comprehensible, memorable, and convenient organization relevant to the user's task." CS774 – Spring 2006

  3. Single Menus • Binary Menus • Mnemonic letters • Radio Buttons • Button Choice • Multiple-item Menus • Multiple-selection menus or check boxes CS774 – Spring 2006

  4. Single Menus (cont.) CS774 – Spring 2006

  5. Single Menus (cont.) CS774 – Spring 2006

  6. Single Menus (cont.) CS774 – Spring 2006

  7. Single Menus (cont.) CS774 – Spring 2006

  8. Combination of multiple menus • Linear menu sequences and simultaneous menus • Linear • Guide the user through complex decision-making process. • E.g. cue cards or "Wizards" • Effective for novice users performing simple tasks • Simultaneous • Present multiple active menus at the same time and allows users to enter choices in any order CS774 – Spring 2006

  9. Combination of multiple menus (cont.) • Tree-structured menus • Designers can form categories of similar items to create a tree structure • E.g., fonts, size style, spacing • Fast retrieved if natural and comprehensive • Use terminology from the task domain • Expanding menus maintain the full context of each choice • E.g., Windows Explorer CS774 – Spring 2006

  10. Combination of multiple menus (cont.) • Menu Maps • Menu maps can help users stay oriented in a large menu tree • Effective for providing overviews to minimize user disorientation. • Acyclic and Cyclic Networks • Useful for • social relationships • transportation routing • scientific-journal citations • Can cause confusion and disorientation. CS774 – Spring 2006

  11. Content Organization • Task-related grouping in tree organization • Create groups of logically similar items • Form groups that cover all possibilities • Make sure that items are nonoverlapping • Use familiar terminology, but ensure that items are distinct from one another CS774 – Spring 2006

  12. Content Organization (cont.) • Item Presentation Sequence • The order of items in the menu is important, and should take natural sequence into account when possible: • Time • Numeric ordering • Physical properties • When cases have no task-related orderings, the designer must choose from such possibilities as: • Alphabetic sequence of terms • Grouping of related items • Most frequently used items first • Most important items first. CS774 – Spring 2006

  13. Content Organization (cont.) CS774 – Spring 2006

  14. Content Organization (cont.) • Menu layout CS774 – Spring 2006

  15. Content Organization (cont.) • Menu layout (cont.) • Titles • Phrasing of menu items • Use familiar and consistent terminology • Ensure that items are distinct from one another • Use consistent and concise phrasing • Bring the keyword to the left CS774 – Spring 2006

  16. Content Organization (cont.) • Menu layout (cont.) • Graphic layout and design • Constraints • screen width and length • display rate • character set • highlighting techniques CS774 – Spring 2006

  17. Fast Movement Through Menus • Keyboard shortcuts • Supports expert use • Can make translation to a foreign language more difficult • Bookmarks in browsers • User configured toolbars CS774 – Spring 2006

  18. Question • You are in charge of designing a menu tree for navigating 1,250 books in a digital library. Present an argument of whether the menu should have larger depth (number of levels) or breadth (number of items per level). CS774 – Spring 2006

  19. Data Entry with Menus: Form Fillin, Dialog Boxes, and Alternatives • Form Fillin • Appropriate when many fields of data must be entered: • Full complement of information is visible to user. • Display resembles familiar paper forms. • Few instructions are required for many types of entries. • Users must be familiar with: • Keyboards • Use of TAB key or mouse to move the cursor • Error correction methods • Field-label meanings • Permissible field contents • Use of the ENTER and/or RETURN key. CS774 – Spring 2006

  20. Data Entry with Menus: Form Fillin, Dialog Boxes, and Alternatives • Form-Fillin Design Guidelines • Meaningful title • Comprehensible instructions • Logical grouping and sequencing of fields • Visually appealing layout of the form • Familiar field labels • Consistent terminology and abbreviations • Visible space and boundaries for data-entry fields • Convenient cursor movement • Error correction for individual characters and entire fields • Error prevention • Error messages for unacceptable values • Optional fields clearly marked • Explanatory messages for fields • Completion signal CS774 – Spring 2006

  21. Data Entry with Menus: Form Fillin, Dialog Boxes, and Alternatives CS774 – Spring 2006

  22. Data Entry with Menus: Form Fillin, Dialog Boxes, and Alternatives • Dialog Boxes • Combination of menu and form-fillin techniques. • Internal layout guidelines: • Meaningful title, consistent style • Top-left to bottom-right sequencing (for English readers) • Clustering and emphasis • Consistent layouts (margins, grid, white space, lines, boxes) • Consistent terminology, fonts, capitalization, justification • Standard buttons (OK, Cancel) • Error prevention by direct manipulation CS774 – Spring 2006

  23. Data Entry with Menus: Form Fillin, Dialog Boxes, and Alternatives • Dialog Boxes (cont.) • External Relationship • Smooth appearance and disappearance • Distinguishable but small boundary • Size small enough to reduce overlap problems • Display close to appropriate items • No overlap of required items • Easy to make disappear • Clear how to complete/cancel CS774 – Spring 2006

  24. Question • Give examples of applications where menu selection and form fillin are more appropriate than a direct-manipulation strategy. CS774 – Spring 2006

  25. Audio Menus and Menus for Small Displays • Menu systems in small displays and situations where hands and eyes are busy are a challenge. • Audio menus • Verbal prompts and option descriptions • Input is normally verbal or keypad • Not persistent, like a visual display, so memorization is required. • Frequent users can avoid listening to options CS774 – Spring 2006

  26. Question • A telephone-based menu system is being designed for a magazine subscription service system. There are seven magazines available: National Geographic, Travel and Leisure, Entrepreneur, Time, Golf, US News and World Report, and Fortune. Describe some reasonable orderings of the voice menus. CS774 – Spring 2006

  27. Fitts's Law • Index of difficulty = log2 (D / W+1) • D = distance between buttons • W = target size • Time to point = C1 + C2 (index of difficulty) • C1 and C2 and constants that depend on the device • C1 = start/stop time in seconds • C2 = speed of the device • Index of difficulty is log2 (2*8/1) = log2 (16) = 4 bits CS774 – Spring 2006

More Related