Predictive Pointing in Cascading Pull-Down Menus

Abstract

Cascading pull-down menus are common interface elements in many modern graphical interactive applications. Navigation of standard cascading pull-down menus is governed by a combination of Fitts' and Acott-Zhai steering laws, however, recent research has shown that the constraints imposed by the two laws can be overcome by reducing the target distance by either reducing the target distance or increasing the target size. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of monitoring and prediction mechanisms that can be used to reduce the distance to the user's pointing targets within standard pull-down menus in existing, unmodified applications. Facilitated pointing can be applied to cascading pull-down menus either through pointer jumps or menu reorganization, i.e. placing copies of commonly accessed options at the top of the menus.