ralph@utcsrgv.UUCP (ralph hill) (08/16/83)
This is in response to utcsstat!laura's comments.
To begin, I agree with laura, in that we are not yet able to produce
effective models of users, and this severely limits our ability to
design interfaces in the absence of experience.
What bothers me though, is her rather broad attack on "human factors
engineers". If her menu example is representative of her experience,
then I suspect that she was dealing with ill-informed individuals.
Perhaps this news group can help remedy the situation.
I will do my part by trying to explain some of her menu problems.
The key here is the difference between recall memory and recognition
memory. An experience user tends to know what they want to do, and can
"recall" the command to do it. The inexperienced user, not having
as much experience, and hence, not having as highly developed skills
for memory searching, relies on the ability to "recognise" the correct
command in a menu (or, sigh, the index to the user's manual).
Hence the difference in preferences.
There are many other issues involved, such as social stigma (real hacks
don't use menus), personal preference and familiarity with the specific
system in use.
I have seen most of the this written up somewhere, but a search of
my bibliography on the keyword "menu" doesn't show up
any hopefuls. Sorry.
--------------------
ralph hill
Computer Systems Research Group
University of Toronto
ARPANet utcsrgv!ralph@UW-BEAVER
UUCP {cornell,watmath,ihnp4,floyd,allegra,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!ralph
-or- {cwruecmp,duke,linus,decvax,research}!utzoo!utcsrgv!ralphlaura@utcsstat.UUCP (08/16/83)
sorry, folks, i expressed myself badly. i did not want to attack Human Factors Engineers as a class (though there are certain ones whose ideas do not seem to be based on the study of the same sort of people that I know). The problem I am seeing is with dillitant human factors engineers. Having learned a little about the subject, they come down and tell me that they want software to do this, that, and the other thing, and, by the way, it has to be a menu system. I take the attitude that, since it is their mistake, i can always give them what they asked for, as long as there are hooks for changing it to what i feel is more appropriate. i have given up arguing with them -- my success rate is too low. On the other hand, the number of people who have wanted changes after living with their messes for a few months is not small. Sometimes i feel that i have shirked my responsibility to all those users outside when I agree to produce something which uses a user- interface i feel is inappropriate. other times i feel that i have behaved in a morally objectionable way in trying to force my opinions on others. If people did not form such hard-and-fast opinions and would be a little more flexible, i would not have this problem. i would still have the ever-present problem of "you may be making a big mistake here Laura", but at least the problems could be expressed in terms of ignorance, rather than someone's well-believed but nevertheless wrong view of something. Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas) (08/17/83)
To: alpha1 Subject: menus - a critical comment I think that nothing I shall see As ugly as a menu tree. For when from leaf to leaf I'd leap, Along the branches I must creep. Originally by Richard Fowell, UCLA (I think)
davido@tekid.UUCP (David Olson) (08/17/83)
My view of the problem that often occurs with menus is that they go to deep. This leads to two effects. For the experienced user who knows what he wants and how to get it, the traversal through several levels of menu is very annoying. The novice user who knows he can do something but finds on the top menu, several entries which may relate to the specific task must traverse each menu (and each sub-menu) hoping to find an entry which lets him do the thing he wants.
moss@eosp1.UUCP (08/18/83)
I have used both systems that have menus and ones that did not. I
have found that a menu can be helpful when you are not familar with
the system. I am in a development team working on word processors.
The product we have out now uses a system of hierarchical soft-key
prompts.
When I first had software to test on the word processor I found the
soft key system easy to learn. Now that I know the system very well
I curse every time I must access a display that is 3 level down. I wish
there were a way to get to the display I need without hitting
all of the softkeys, and going through the other displays first.
The restricitions imposed could refer to the fact that some(many?)
systems do not allow you to overide the menus when you know what you
want to do.
--
Bill Moss
Exxon Office Systems(Princeton, N.J.)
{decvax!ittvax, allegra, princeton}!eosp1!mossntt@dciem.UUCP (ntt) (08/19/83)
The Ontario government is sponsoring public information terminals at
various popular locations such as shopping malls and tourist attractions.
They're called Teleguide and use Telidon graphics. The interface is
strictly menu-oriented (unlike some other similar systems I have seen
that let you select a page by menu OR by directly giving its address).
I find that the best way to find out what is available is accidentally
(while waiting for a terminal)... the other day I noticed someone looking
at foreign exchange rates*, but he didn't display the page with the Australian
dollar before going back to the root menu, and I was left guessing whether
to look under "Ontario information" or "Toronto information".
But a bad example doesn't means that menus have to be bad: consider
the sequence... cd /usr/src, lc, cd cmd, lc, cd local, lc, cd graf, ...
This is very much like as a menu system with the menu displayed only on
request, but note also that the user can skip levels as desired.
Maybe menu systems should include ".."!
*Supplied by the Bank of America Canada, of course. Much of the
information on the system is advertising. Frequently the graphics are
used to display a corporate logo or "pretty" picture BEFORE the data...
Some words used in this item are probably trademarks of somebody.
Mark Brader, NTT Systems Inc.rcj@burl.UUCP (08/25/83)
I HATE menus, but of course, there are bad menus and BAD MENUS. The system at the Greensboro, NC public library is one of the worst that I have ever seen, get this: a) All commands are delimited by <ESC>, not <CR> b) The only way to rubout a character is to type \; it does NOT "echoe" c) If I am looking for books by Isaac Asimov, and there are 56 matches for my library system, it shows them to me two at a time with the typical author/title/call-number/etc. information for each one; I hit <ESC> to continue. I get to the 17th book and decide that I want circulation/bibliographical information on it, so I choose that option. I have seen what I want to see about the 17th book; my only options now are to 'H'alt (abort the WHOLE schmeer), or to 'Q'uit (start back looking at the book names again FROM BOOK #1!!!!!!!) Now, I have to hit enough <ESC>s (8 of them, to be exact), with no typeahead, to get back to where I left off looking at the 17th and 18th books in the list. Menus rot for non-novices, -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3814 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ floyd sb1 mhuxv ]!burl!rcj