Rules to build user friendly menus

From Freeplane - free mind mapping and knowledge management software
Revision as of 18:47, 14 July 2011 by Ldmpub (talk | contribs) (→‎Contextual Menu)

Introduction

The purpose of this page is to describe 10 basic principles to build easy to use Menus for a rich mind map software called Freeplane !

You can refer to Menus : work in progress to follow and collaborate in the design of the new FreePlane menus structure.

Legend

In this page :

  • MM means Main Menu. Main menu is the main bar of menus which gives access to all software features
  • CO means Command. A command is available in menu, it executes an action
  • SM means Sub Menu. A submenu is a menu entry which opens an other menu
  • CM means Contextual Menu. A contextual menu is a menu displayed only in a specific context (ie while on a node or on the map background)
  • XX# means rules number # for subject XX.

Rules to organize Main Menu

  • (MM1) a MM entry is created for each kind of operation (File / Edit / Display ...)
  • (MM2) MM should be in a logical order inspired by other softwares best practices

Rules to organize Commands in menus

  • (CO1) in a MM entry, items are grouped by type of operations (all commands to move nodes are at the same place)
  • (CO2) items are ordered logicaly (items used first at the beginning : ie "Create Node" then "Edit Node" then "Delete Node" or "Print Preview" then "Print". If no logical order can be found other rules can apply:
    • the most often used commands can be set in first position
    • order can also be set from particular to generic (ie: "Fold selected node" then "Fold all nodes of map")

Use of Sub Menus

  • (SM1) SM are created to simplify long MM or CM (ie more than 20 items in the menu)
  • (SM2) SM should be limited to 3 levels (ie 3 clicks before displaying the wanted command)
  • (SB3) SM should contain 3 items or more

Contextual Menu

Rules applied to build contextual menu :

  • (CM1) in CM, order should be the same as in MM (consistency for end-users). For instance Node Contextual menu is yet a copy of the Main Menu structure
  • (CM2) CM should contain only very frequently used commands
  • (CM3) 3 navigation levels are the maximum allowed in contextual menu.

Node Contextual menu's benefits are :

  • Limited mouse movments, don't need to go to Main Menu => quick access
  • Simplified menus displaying only most used features => easy to use
  • Available and fully fonctional while working on a map in full screen mode.

Toolbars

  • (TB1) the rules for toolbars are the same as for CM : same order as MM, only frequently used commands.
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