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In user interface design, a menu is a list of options presented to the user.
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In user interface design, a menu is a list of options presented to the user.
A user chooses an option from a menu by using an input device. Some input methods require linear navigation: the user must move a cursor or otherwise pass from one menu item to another until reaching the selection. On a computer terminal, a reverse video bar may serve as the cursor.
Touch user interfaces and menus that accept codes to select menu options without navigation are two examples of non-linear interfaces.
Some of the input devices used in menu interfaces are touchscreens, keyboards, mice, remote controls, and microphones. In a voice-activated system, such as interactive voice response, a microphone sends a recording of the user's voice to a speech recognition system, which translates it to a command.
A computer using a command line interface may present a list of relevant commands with assigned short-cuts (digits, numbers or characters) on the screen. Entering the appropriate short-cut selects a menu item. A more sophisticated solution offers navigation using the cursor keys or the mouse (even in two dimensions; then the menu items appear or disappear similarly to the menus common in GUIs). The current selection is highlighted and can be activated by pressing the enter key.
A computer using a graphical user interface presents menus with a combination of text and symbols to represent choices. By clicking on one of the symbols or text, the operator is selecting the instruction that the symbol represents. A context menu is a menu in which the choices presented to the operator are automatically modified according to the current context in which the operator is working.
A common use of menus is to provide convenient access to various operations such as saving or opening a file, quitting a program, or manipulating data. Most widget toolkits provide some form of pull-down or pop-up menu. Pull-down menus are the type commonly used in menu bars (usually near the top of a window or screen), which are most often used for performing actions, whereas pop-up (or "fly-out") menus are more likely to be used for setting a value, and might appear anywhere in a window.
According to traditional human interface guidelines, menu names were always supposed to be verbs, such as "file", "edit" and so on. [1] This has been largely ignored in subsequent user interface developments. A single-word verb however is sometimes unclear, and so as to allow for multiple word menu names, the idea of a vertical menu was invented, as seen in NeXTSTEP.
Menus are now also seen in consumer electronics, starting with TV sets and VCRs that gained on-screen displays in the early 1990s, and extending into computer monitors and DVD players. Menus allow the control of settings like tint, brightness, contrast, bass and treble, and other functions such as channel memory and closed captioning. Other electronics with text-only displays can also have menus, anything from business telephone systems with digital telephones, to weather radios that can be set to respond only to specific weather warnings in a specific area. Other more recent electronics in the 2000s also have menus, such as digital media players.
Menus are sometimes hierarchically organized, allowing navigation through different levels of the menu structure. Selecting a menu entry with an arrow will expand it, showing a second menu (the submenu) with options related to the selected entry.
Usability of submenus has been criticized as difficult, because of the narrow height that must be crossed by the pointer. The steering law predicts that this movement will be slow, and any error in touching the boundaries of the parent menu entry will hide the submenu. Some techniques proposed to alleviate these errors are keeping the submenu open while moving the pointer in diagonal, and using mega menus designed to enhance scannability and categorization of its contents. [2] [3] Negative user experience with submenus is referred to as "menu diving". [4]
In computer menu functions or buttons, an appended ellipsis ("…") means that upon selection, another dialog will follow, where the user can or must make a choice. [5] If the ellipse is missing, the function will be executed upon selection.
Displays with touchscreen functionality, e.g. modern cameras and printers, also have menus: these are not drop-down menus but buttons.
A computer mouse is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of the pointer on a display, which allows a smooth control of the graphical user interface of a computer.
A context menu is a menu in a graphical user interface (GUI) that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a limited set of choices that are available in the current state, or context, of the operating system or application to which the menu belongs. Usually the available choices are actions related to the selected object. From a technical point of view, such a context menu is a graphical control element.
A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage files and folders. The most common operations performed on files or groups of files include creating, opening, renaming, copying, moving, deleting and searching for files, as well as modifying file attributes, properties and file permissions. Folders and files may be displayed in a hierarchical tree based on their directory structure.
The graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicators such as primary notation, instead of text-based UIs, typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard.
A pointing device is a human interface device that allows a user to input spatial data to a computer. CAD systems and graphical user interfaces (GUI) allow the user to control and provide data to the computer using physical gestures by moving a hand-held mouse or similar device across the surface of the physical desktop and activating switches on the mouse. Movements of the pointing device are echoed on the screen by movements of the pointer and other visual changes. Common gestures are point and click and drag and drop.
In user interface design, a pie menu or radial menu is a circular context menu where selection depends on direction. It is a graphical control element. A pie menu is made of several "pie slices" around an inactive center and works best with stylus input, and well with a mouse. Pie slices are drawn with a hole in the middle for an easy way to exit the menu.
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine from the human end, while the machine simultaneously feeds back information that aids the operators' decision-making process. Examples of this broad concept of user interfaces include the interactive aspects of computer operating systems, hand tools, heavy machinery operator controls and process controls. The design considerations applicable when creating user interfaces are related to, or involve such disciplines as, ergonomics and psychology.
A scrollbar is an interaction technique or widget in which continuous text, pictures, or any other content can be scrolled in a predetermined direction on a computer display, window, or viewport so that all of the content can be viewed, even if only a fraction of the content can be seen on a device's screen at one time. It offers a solution to the problem of navigation to a known or unknown location within a two-dimensional information space. It was also known as a handle in the very first GUIs. They are present in a wide range of electronic devices including computers, graphing calculators, mobile phones, and portable media players. The user interacts with the scrollbar elements using some method of direct action, the scrollbar translates that action into scrolling commands, and the user receives feedback through a visual updating of both the scrollbar elements and the scrolled content.
In computing, a window is a graphical control element. It consists of a visual area containing some of the graphical user interface of the program it belongs to and is framed by a window decoration. It usually has a rectangular shape that can overlap with the area of other windows. It displays the output of and may allow input to one or more processes.
A touchpad or trackpad is a type of pointing device. Its largest component is a tactile sensor: an electronic device with a flat surface, that detects the motion and position of a user's fingers, and translates them to a position on a screen, to control a pointer in a graphical user interface. Touchpads are common on laptop computers, contrasted with desktop computers, where mice are more prevalent. Trackpads are sometimes used on desktops, where desk space is scarce. Because trackpads can be made small, they can be found on personal digital assistants (PDAs) and some portable media players. Wireless touchpads are also available, as detached accessories.
In human–computer interaction, WIMP stands for "windows, icons, menus, pointer", denoting a style of interaction using these elements of the user interface. Other expansions are sometimes used, such as substituting "mouse" and "mice" for menus, or "pull-down menu" and "pointing" for pointer.
A graphical widget in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through direct manipulation to read or edit information about an application. User interface libraries such as Windows Presentation Foundation, Qt, GTK, and Cocoa, contain a collection of controls and the logic to render these.
Common User Access (CUA) is a standard for user interfaces to operating systems and computer programs. It was developed by IBM and first published in 1987 as part of their Systems Application Architecture. Used originally in the MVS/ESA, VM/CMS, OS/400, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows operating systems, parts of the CUA standard are now implemented in programs for other operating systems, including variants of Unix. It is also used by Java AWT and Swing.
In human–computer interaction, a cursor is an indicator used to show the current position on a computer monitor or other display device that will respond to input.
A menu bar is a graphical control element which contains drop-down menus.
Compared with previous versions of Microsoft Windows, features new to Windows Vista are very numerous, covering most aspects of the operating system, including additional management features, new aspects of security and safety, new I/O technologies, new networking features, and new technical features. Windows Vista also removed some others.
Workbench is the desktop environment and graphical file manager of AmigaOS developed by Commodore International for their Amiga line of computers. Workbench provides the user with a graphical interface to work with file systems and launch applications. It uses a workbench metaphor for representing file system organisation.
A mouse button is an electric switch on a computer mouse which can be pressed (“clicked”) to select or interact with an element of a graphical user interface. Mouse buttons are most commonly implemented as miniature snap-action switches.
In computing and user interface engineering, a selection is a list of items on which user operations will take place. The user typically adds items to the list manually, although the computer may create a selection automatically.
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