РАН 1 TheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation Mikhail Goubko, Alexander Danilenko.

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TheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation

Mikhail Goubko, Alexander Danilenko

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Menus everywhere. Do you always like how they are built?

TheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation

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РАНTheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation

Introduction. The Problem

Hierarchical menu optimizationMenus:• Application Commands• Data Access

• Data storage organization• Query results• Internet catalogs• Contents

• Ubicomp devices menus• Voice services menus• Questionnaires• etc

Hierarchical index was one of the earliest methods to arrange a large number of items for fast access. Contemporary examples of such hierarchies include complex command menus in GUI, Web catalogues like “Google™ directory”, voice menus of phone-based services, menus of ubicomp devices, and many others.

Some people say a hierarchical menu is an old-fashioned tool, but look around – the number of menus does not decrease. Users spend much time selecting from menus, thus the usability of applications is often determined by the usability of its menu system. The problem of a convenient menu is particularly important for mobile devices, with their limited interface capabilities.

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РАНTheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation

Introduction. The Problem

Hierarchical menu optimizationMenus:• Application Commands• Data Access

• Data storage organization• Query results• Internet catalogs• Contents

• Ubicomp devices menus• Voice services menus• Questionnaires• etc

The design of a hierarchical menu consists of building a hierarchy of taxonomies for the set of items and choosing a menu type or layout for every taxonomy (menu panel). The result must fit the best specific application, user, and hardware conditions.The usability of a menu is typically measured by the items’ average search time. There are usually a number of semantically feasible ways to arrange a given set of items into a hierarchy of categories, so the problem is to find a permissible hierarchy with the lowest average search time.

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Look! It works!

Manual optimization

Nokia 7510 Messages menu(52 menu items)

Average search time:

Original menu: 8,53 sOptimized menu: 7,07 sLower bound estimate: 6,70 s

22% gain

5% from the ideal

6.86 s

25%

2%!!!

In less than an hour!

TheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation

Automated with TheMenuDesigner

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TheMenuDesigner. How it works?

Basic interface elements

Source data

Menu items

Popularities

Several sensible items taxonomies (classifications)

Alternative menu types

Current menu structure

Performance indicators

Automated menu adjustment tools

TheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation

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TheMenuDesigner. How it works?

Taxonomies

Taxonomies are the sensible classifications. They are used to automatically build semantically admissible but, in addition, time-optimal menu structures. Every menu panel is built automatically on the basis of one of these taxonomies by proper sorting and grouping.The taxonomies itself can be plain or hierarchical. Classification is the work done by a menu designer before the optimization. The general rule here is “the richer classification – the better menu”.It seems that classification is a hard work, but, in fact, human brain likes classification tasks!

TheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation

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Menu types

Another important portion of source data is the library of menu types. The menu type is the combination of menu appearance and usage conditions.

The menu type determines COMPLETELY menu navigation delays – that is why they are so important.

Menu appearance is what the designer can choose (for example, “top-down list of labels”), while usage condition are fixed externally: hardware features, application nature.

Average values are used

TheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation

TheMenuDesigner. How it works?

The choice of the proper menu model is still the most complex thing in menu design. But send us a e-mail to [email protected] and we will do it for you for free, as we are interested in development of the tool.

The menu type is a big table of delays built on the basis of experiments or a theory.

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The process

1. Load menu elements2. Create taxonomies3. Fix the focus group4. Select menu types from

the library5. Compare navigation time

estimates 6. Choose the best menu

type7. Create an initial menu

structure8. Calculate current

navigation time9. Find the “bottleneck”10. Restructure it11. Repeat 9 and 10 until

success

TheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation

TheMenuDesigner. How it works?

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РАНTheMenuDesigner – a tool to automate user menus creation

Mikhail Goubko Alexander [email protected] [email protected]

TheMenuDesigner project site: http://www.mtas.ru/person/goubko/themenudesignerGitHub Repository: http://mgoubko.github.com/TheMenuDesigner

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