Chapter 6 Discussion with Answers
1. 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 three reasonable orderings of the voice menus and justify each.
Sometimes called the “information architecture” of our magazine subscription
system, consider both business reasons and ease-of-use in designing the
system.
For example, possibly the simple alphabetized list may speed access to a
user:
Entrepreneur, Fortune, Golf, National Geographic, Travel and Leisure,
Time, US News and World Report
Another approach is a grouping by subject, e.g. recreation vs business to
break up the menu into two smaller lists:
Business: Entrepreneur, Fortune, Time, US News and World Report
And
Recreation: Golf, National Geographic, Travel and Leisure
A third approach would be grouping by sales, i.e. number of subscriptions
(my guess), to focus the frequent users first:
Time, National Geographic, Fortune, US News and World Report,
Travel and Leisure, Golf, Entrepreneur
2. Provide three examples of an application where menu selection and form fill-in are
more appropriate than a direct-manipulation strategy.
a) Systems that require little or no training, e.g. picking the amount to withdraw
from an Automated Teller Machine, e.g. $20, $40, $60, etc.
b) Task-drive applications, e.g. an automated food ordering menu where you go
from drink, to appetizer, to main course, to dessert, etc. from a fixed list of
choices
c) Simple confirmation statements, e.g. delete file Yes/No?
3. Design a touch screen music jukebox, which allows the user to select from a menu of
the five most popular songs of the week. Draw a sketch of this interface for each of
the following menu types: Binary Menu, Multiple-Item menu, Check boxes, Pull-down
Menus. Argue which design serves the user best.
Left to your imagination. This is an ideal homework assignment, performed
with student teams. The wise student will look at Sections 6.2 through 6.4 in
the text (or admittedly the entire Chapter 6) before embarking on this
adventure. Also, a quick look at how it is done on existing systems, e.g. the
iTunes web site, is worth the time. Typically combinations of menu types may
prove (after usability testing) to be the best answer.
4. 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).
The best way to examine menu depth vs. breadth is to first look at the
extremes. How cumbersome would it be to have 1 menu with a long list of
1,250 books on it? How awkward would it be to have 1,250 menus each of 1
level deep? A natural grouping to break the items into “bite sizes” may follow
how books are classified now, e.g. Dewey Decimal System, e.g. science
books, fiction, non-fiction, etc. Of course, recall if you are building a book web
site, you may want to classify the books in a manner that may drive sales,
e.g. Top Ten best sellers, regardless of their classification, for business
reasons. This is easily discussed in the classroom with menu tree diagrams at
a white-board for easy editing. This author often emphasizes there is not a
100% correct answer, but healthy design discussions with usability testing
will lead to a preferred solution.
5. Frequent menu users can become annoyed if they must make several menu
selections to complete a simple task. Suggest two ways you can refine the menu
approach to accommodate expert or frequent users.
Keyboard shortcuts can help, either using reduced keystrokes, e.g. special
key combinations (e.g. Cntl-S) keys, to accelerate the navigation. Another
method would be to use navigation aids (some informally call it “bread
crumbs”) for easy and direct navigation to a menu location without having to
walk up or down a menu tree one step at a time.
6. When users are navigating through a menu structure, they may become disoriented.
The authors suggest techniques to help alleviate this disorientation such as indicating
the current position in the menu. Draw a sketch of how you can show users their
position for an on-line car showroom, assuming the user has browsed with the
following path:
Main Menu -> Mid-size Cars -> Honda -> Accord
Navigation aids can help guide users through simple as well as complex
menus. Highlighting menu location is one example. Using the above example,
one could highlight your location at the “Mid-size Cars” display by doing the
following:
Main Menu -> Mid-size Cars -> Honda -> Accord
