Menus

Summary

This document discusses design principles used for the menus in Netscape Communicator.

Design Goals

• Keep the menus simple.
• Menus must be consistent across components as much as possible, while respecting platform guidelines and capabilities.
• Develop highly stable core menus (such as File, Edit, View, Communicator) while grouping dynamic menu items separately.
• Support accelerators that have been assigned in previous versions
• Use menus as a way to integrate the suite of components in Communicator.

Principles and Guidelines

Windows
From the Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design, 1995 by Microsoft Corporation
A menu bar is an area displayed across the top of the window directly below the title bar. Each menu title provides access to a drop-down menu composed of a collection of menu items. The content of the menu bar and its drop-down menus are determined by the functionality of the application and the context of the user's interaction.

Users can cancel a drop-down menu by pressing the ALT key whenever the menu bar is active. This not only closes the drop-down menu, it deactivates the menu bar. Pressing the ESC key also cancels a drop-down menu. However, the ESC key cancels only the current menu level. For example, if a drop-down menu is open, pressing ESC closes the drop-down menu, but leaves its menu title highlighted. Pressing ESC a second time unhighlights the menu title and deactivates the menu bar, returning input focus to the content information in the window.


Macintosh
From the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, 1992 by Apple Computer
The menu bar extends across the top of the screen and contains words and icons that serve as the title of each menu. The application's menu titles should remain consistent. When the mouse button is down while the pointer is over the menu title, a pull-down menu appears. The application highlights the menu title and displays the menu. Users can move the mouse away from the pull-down menu and release the mouse button in order to "cancel" a pull-down menu.

UNIX
Generally, we follow the Windows convention for the UNIX platform.

Windows
The modifier key for accelerators on Windows is Ctrl.

Macintosh
The modifier key for accelerators on the Mac OS is Command (the key next to the space bar with an Apple on it).

UNIX
The modifier key for accelerators on UNIX is Alt.

Generally we'd like to keep menu accelerators consistent across the application, so that ctrl-N will always create a new Navigator window, regardless of the component being used. Users benefitted from this design because they didn't have to think about what they were currently doing in order to open a new window. However, as Communicator gets larger and we invent more menu items, and as Communicator gets componentized, keeping menu accelerators consistent across the application may be more difficult to achieve and maintain.

Windows
From the Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design, 1995 by Microsoft Corporation
An access key is an alphanumeric key -- sometimes referred to as a mnemonic -- that when used in combination with the ALT key navigates to and activates a control. For example, pressing ALT+O activates a control whose label is "Open" and whose assigned access key is "O". Typically, access keys are not case sensitive.

Assign access keys characters to controls using the following guidelines (in order of choice):

1. The first letter of the label for the control, unless another letter provides a better mnemonic association.
2. A distinctive consonant in the label.
3. A vowel in the label.
Macintosh
There are no mnemonics on the Macintosh platform.

UNIX
Generally, we follow the Windows convention for the UNIX platform.

Mac applications typically have static menu items for a single application, with menu items disabled when they cannot be activated. Because Communicator appears to be a suite of applications but is actually one application, there has been considerable debate as to whether the Macintosh Communicator menus should be more classic Mac-like or behave as if Communicator were truly componentized. For now, we have erred on the side of cross-platform consistency, for several reasons. First, including all menu items in all menus everywhere in the application would result in extremely long menus. Second, our long-term plan is to componentize the product, in which case having all menu items in all menus everywhere is irrelevant. Third, if all menu titles were to be included, Communicator would have an extremely long menu title (File, Edit, View, Go, Message, Insert, Format, Tools, Bookmarks, Communicator, Help). This menu title would be insufficiently long and unusable. We have not collected usability data as to whether this unMac-like menu system has an effect on usability, although some designers previously employed at Apple have cited studies done there that show that users care most about having the commands they need in the menu when they need them, and care less about whether the menu titles and commands are static.

There are some cases where we prefer Mac-like menus over cross-platform consistency. Macintosh applications typically group Close with Save. Windows users, as we have observed in the usability lab, prefer Close grouped with Exit at the bottom of the File menu. "Clear" is used in the Edit menu instead of "Delete".

Throughout Communicator, the following menu titles are used (in this order): File, Edit, View, Communicator, Help. Dynamic menu titles which are specific to the component (Insert, Format, Tools, Message, Go) appear between View and Communicator.

The New submenu aims to integrate the product so that users can invoke a new Navigator window, a new New Message window, or a New Blank Page window anywhere within Communicator. We felt it was important to be able to do this because we wanted to allow users to naturally transition from one component to another without having to think about which component they currently were using. Below these items are a separator, followed by "New" menu items specific to the component. For example, in the Address Book window, the New submenu might look like this:

Navigator Window
New Message
Blank Page


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Card...
List...
Personal Address Book...

The New submenu in the Inbox window might look like this:


Navigator Window
New Message
Blank Page


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Folder...
Discussion Group Server...

The Communicator menu is another menu that is used to unify and integrate the product. First-class windows (i.e. Communicator components) are listed first, with the corresponding accelerator being the modifier key + the numerical order in which it appears in the menu. Under the first-class windows is a separator, followed by second-class windows (i.e. "tools"-type windows). The third set of items in the Communicator menu are the window titles of the open Communicator windows.

We have observed in usability studies that users have a hard time finding items in the Communicator menu because it is too long. This is a problem that should be addressed in future designs: how do we provide menu access to all windows and components while making them discoverable and easy to access quickly without cluttering the menus and/or the menu title?