Menu Design on Small Display User Interfaces: Measuring the Influence of Menu Type, Number of Preview Items, and Menu Breadth on Navigation Efficiency
Lin Jiang, Yuhan Chen
Abstract
An experiment was conducted to determine menu navigation efficiency (in terms of time, accuracy, and subjective ratings) of mobile devices (smartphones and smart watches) displaying menus in Chinese language; the study compares the performance of menus with three types and three different numbers of preview items. The compared menu type variants were full, collapsible, and cascading menus. The latter two types had submenus, while the first one did not. The participants were instructed to find the target item. The relationship among menu type, number of preview items, menu breadth, and navigation efficiency was found. This indicated that the menu type significantly influenced navigation efficiency. When the menu breadth was large, collapsible, and cascading menus were suitable for smartphones and watches, respectively. The number of preview items also had a significant effect, especially on watches; 16 and 4 preview items were suitable for phones and watches, respectively.