TheMenuDesigner is the deisgn tool to create and optimize hierarchical menus for computer programs, gadgets, ubicomp devices, voice services, and other applications.

A hierarchical index was one of the earliest methods to arrange a large number of items for fast access. Now hierarchical menus are used in GUI command menus, Web catalogues like “Google™ directory”, voice menus of phone-based services, menus of ubicomp devices, etc. Users spend much time selecting from menus, thus usability of an application higly correlates with usability of its menu system. This factor is particularly important for mobile devices with their limited interface capabilities. The design process of a hierarchical menu consists of building a hierarchy of taxonomies for the set of items and choosing a menu type or layout for every taxonomy (a menu panel). The result must fit the best specific application, user, and hardware conditions. Usability of a menu is typically measured by the items’ average search time. There is usually a number of semantically feasible ways to arrange a given set of items into a hierarchy of categories, giving rise to the complex mathematical problem of finding a admissible hierarchy with the lowest average search time. TheMenuDesigner application provides flexible and convenient human-guided simulation and optimization routines for menu structure design.

We know, that with TheMenuDesigner menu design becomes a pleasure!

Authors

Alexander Danilenko (alexander.danilenko@gmail.com)
Mikhail Goubko (mgoubko@mail.ru)

Download

Download TheMenuDesigner Version 1.0 and supplementary files

Dowload TheMenuDesigner Version 1.1

Dowload TheMenuDesigner Version 1.3

Sources

Current version of source files is available through Github repository.

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