Eye tracking the visual search of click-down menus

ABSTRACT

Click-down (or pull-down) menus have long been a key component of graphical user interfaces, yet we know surprisingly little about how users actually interact with such menus. Nilsens [8] study on menu selection has led to the development of a number of models of how users perform the task [6, 21. However, the validity of these models has not been empirically assessed with respect to eye movements (though [l] presents some interesting data that bear on these models). The present study is an attempt to provide data that can help refine our understanding of how users interact with such menus.

REFERENCES

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• 8: Nilsen, E. L. (1991). Perceptual-motor control in humancomputer interaction (Technical Report Number 37). Ann Arbor, MI: The Cognitive Science and Machine Intelligence Laboratory, the University of Michigan.
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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Interaction styles (e.g., commands, menus, forms, direct manipulation)

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Theory

Keywords:
cognitive models, eye tracking, menu selection, visual search