unity-design team mailing list archive

[Kevin Godby <godbyk@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello, Shane.

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 12:15 PM, Shane Fagan
<shanepatrickfagan@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> We can do it and also learn from microsoft's mistake. Im not saying it
> wouldnt be a challenge to make it work but I think we should be
> looking to do things like this to make the interface more intelligent.
> Menus haven't changed for a long time we should change that.

I'm all for making user interfaces more intelligent. However, we
shouldn't change pull-down menus merely for the sake of changing
pull-down menus.

What are the problems with the existing pull-down menu design?  What
are some potential solutions to those problems?  How can we test those
solutions to see if they are improvements over the original design?

Here's an example:

Problem: Users must wade through menu items that they rarely use to
get to the menu items they use more frequently (such as Save and
Print).

Proposed solution: Rearrange the menu items so that the
most-frequently used menu items at the top of the menu.  Further, we
could hide rarely used menu items and reveal them if the user requests
it or dwells on the menu for some period of time.

Testing the design: Microsoft implemented this design in Office 2000
to much fanfare.  The problem with the design is that the order of the
menu items changed from day to day, so the desired menu item wasn't
where it was before, and was therefore *more difficult* to find.
Further, the hidden menu items made it much more difficult for people
to discover the (less-frequently used) features they were seeking and
greatly reduced the discoverability of those features.

At this point, you could iterate the design to address the problems
found by testing or, if the problems were inherent in the design, go
back to the drawing board and come up with a new design.

But you should always start with a clear problem statement—otherwise
you have no way of knowing whether your 'solution' is an improvement.

--Kevin