The effect of tree structure on search in a hierarchical menu selection system

Norman, Kent L.; Chin, John P.

doi:10.1080/01449298808901862

Cited by 63 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The control group received mild instructions to avoid rushing ("Take your time; there is no rush"). Norman and Chin (1988) fixed the number of levels at four, with 256 target items, and varied the shape of the tree structures. They recommend greater breadth at the root and at the leaves, and added a further encouragement to minimize the total number of menu frames needed so as to increase familiarity.…”

Section: Empirical Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Depth vs Breath in the Arrangement of Web Links

Zaphiris

2000

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of depth and breadth in the arrangement of web link hierarchies on the user preference, response time and errors. An experiment is reported, where previous menu depth/breath tradeoff procedures are applied to the web link domain. The variables evaluated were five different web page linking strategies with varying depth and breadth. The results indicate that task completion time increases as the depth of the web site structure increases.

show abstract

Section: Empirical Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Depth vs Breath in the Arrangement of Web Links

Zaphiris

2000

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The control group received mild instructions to avoid rushing (`take your time; there is no rush'). Norman and Chin (1988) ®xed the number of levels at four, with 256 target items, and varied the shape of the tree structures. They recommend greater breadth at the root and at the leaves, and added a further encouragement to minimize the total number of menu frames needed so as to increase familiarity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expandable indexes vs. sequential menus for searching hierarchies on the World Wide Web

Zaphiris¹,

Shneiderman²,

Norman³

2002

Behaviour & Information Technology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. An experiment is reported that compared expandable indexes providing full menu context with sequential menus providing only partial context. Menu depth was varied using hierarchies of two, three and four levels deep in an asymmetric structure of 457 root level items. Menus were presented on the World Wide Web within a browser. Participants searched for speci®c targets. Results suggest that reducing the depth of hierarchies improves performance in terms of speed and search e ciency. Surprisingly, expandable indexes resulted in poorer performance with deeper hierarchies than did sequential menus.

show abstract

“…Comparisons that limit the parameters of menu designs to depth and breadth may not account for some factors that affect performance. Studies of menu structures with different shapes (Norman & Chin, 1988) and with differing amounts of contextual information (Chimera & Shneiderman, 1994;Zaphiris, Shneiderman, & Norman, 1999) have shown that performance can be influenced by the type of task, the amount of context given, and the shape of the menu. Examination of these issues as they apply to simultaneous menus is a promising direction for future work.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alphabetical versus categorical ordering within categorized groups did not affect performance. Norman and Chin (1988) examined the effect of menu structure shape. Using a 256-item menu structure and a constant depth of four, they compared structures with a range of items at each level, including constant (4 × 4 × 4 × 4), decreasing (8 × 8 × 2 × 2), increasing (2 × 2 × 8 × 8), concave (8 × 2 × 2 × 8), and convex (2 × 8 × 8 × 2).…”

Section: Related Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Benefits of Simultaneous Over Sequential Menus as Task Complexity Increases

Hochheiser¹,

Shneiderman²

2000

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To date, experimental comparisons of menu layouts have concentrated on variants of hierarchical structures of sequentially presented menus. Simultaneous menus-layouts that present multiple active menus on a screen at the same time-are an alternative arrangement that may be useful in many Web design situations. This article describes an experiment involving a between-subject comparison of simultaneous menus and their traditional sequential counterparts. A total of 20 experienced Web users used either simultaneous or sequential menus in a standard Web browser to answer questions based on U.S. Census data. Our results suggest that appropriate use of simultaneous menus can lead to improved task performance speeds without harming subjective satisfaction measures. For novice users performing simple tasks, the simplicity of sequential menus appears to be helpful, but experienced users performing complex tasks may benefit from simultaneous menus. Design improvements can amplify the benefits of simultaneous menu layouts.

show abstract

The effect of tree structure on search in a hierarchical menu selection system

Cited by 63 publications

References 10 publications

Depth vs Breath in the Arrangement of Web Links

Depth vs Breath in the Arrangement of Web Links

Expandable indexes vs. sequential menus for searching hierarchies on the World Wide Web

Performance Benefits of Simultaneous Over Sequential Menus as Task Complexity Increases

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About