[Sigia-l] Rollover vs clicked menus [Was IA Java alternatives]

[Pabini Gabriel-Petit]

Anu Gupta wrote:
[These menus seems] *at least* as usable as dropdown menus, and as they
don't disappear
 the moment mouseover is not true, I don't see how they are more difficult
than using a link...

Pabini's response:

While users can directly choose from among visible options, drop-down menus
require exploration by users and multiple decision points where users may
not yet have enough information to choose. Also, using drop-down menus
increases task-completion times, as demonstrated by the following study on
the Surl site:

http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/51/menu.htm

Chris wrote:
The below css/js menu put together by Eric Meyer is accessible - the
submenus are nested lists so their relationship to the parent element is
architecturally intact. The default orientation for the below code is
dropdown, but you can modify it to do a flyout instead.

http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/devedge-redesign-css/

Pabini's response:

While these menus satisfy many accessibility requirements, there is one area
in which they are weak. Drop-down menus are difficult for some physically
challenged people to use.

I, personally, find menus that appear on rollover--such as those in the
aforementioned example--to be very annoying, because they often appear when
I don't want them to. They also present other usability problems, including
the following:

* Users feel less in control with rollover menus and find them distracting.
* Rollover menus have higher error rates than menus that appear when users
click their titles.
* Target-acquisition times are sometimes actually greater for rollover menus
than for menus that appear when users click their titles.

There are several reports on usability studies of such menus on the SURL
site:

http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/1w/Mouse-over.htm

http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/1s/mouseover.htm

This menu implementation is doubly disconcerting, because some items on the
navbar are simply links while others are drop-down menus. While their
behaviors are inconsistent, there is nothing to physically distinguish a
link from a menu.

Pabini
________________________________________

Pabini Gabriel-Petit
Principal & User Experience Architect
Spirit Softworks
www.spiritsoftworks.com