Mobile phones have ceased to be devices that people merely use to make phone calls. Today, modern mobile phones offer their users a large selection of features which are accessed via hierarchical menus. These hierarchical menus typically result in deep nested menus that require numerous clicks to navigate through, often resulting in usability issues. This paper presents a prototype of a new menu style (Barrel menu) for mobile phones, and compares the usability of this menu style with that of a traditional hierarchical (Hub-and-Spoke) design. The Barrel menu was found to be as efficient as the Hub-and-Spoke menu in terms of time-on-task and key presses, but was found to cause fewer user errors. In addition, the Barrel menu was found to be better in terms of ease of use, orientation, user satisfaction and learnability. Thus, the Barrel menu shows the potential to be a feasible alternative for mobile phone manufacturers to overcome some of the usability issues associated with Hub-and-Spoke menus.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.