ATTENDING TO COGNITIVE ORGANIZATION IN THE DESIGN OF COMPUTER MENUS -A 2-EXPERIMENT STUDY

In a two-experiment sequence, we examine task time across several orde rings of menu lists. Findings demonstrate that it is not sufficient to consider good physical layout in screen design (as some researchers s uggest), and that good physical layout is subordinate to good conceptu al layout. A second purpose of these two experiments is to extend prev ious work to encompass smaller menus of item size nine and fewer, an i mportant area, since guidelines recommend menus with nine or fewer ite ms for maximizing the effectiveness of the user interface.