May 31, 2002
Fisheye Usability
Thanks for all the feedback about the fisheye menu. I've received a few comments about the usability of fisheye menus, and wanted to respond by pointing out the research article cited in my previous post. A lot of research has gone into evaluating the advantages/disadvantages of fisheye menus vs. scrolling menus, including the original paper by Ben Bederson. Basically, fisheye views have a strong advantage in browsing scenarios, but scrollers have a slight advantage during goal-directed tasks (when user knows exactly what he/she's looking for). The focus length parameter is supposed to help the designer calibrate the trade-offs between focus and context, depending on the task.
Also, please note the fisheye menu component's "Focus Length" parameter, which allows you to specify how many full-sized menu items should appear near the mouse cursor. If you increase the focus length to 7 or higher, you'll be able to visually scan a large span of menu items without having to move the mouse.
To quote Ben Bederson, "The focus length parameter is important because it controls the trade-off between the number of menu items at full size versus the size that is used to render the smallest items. The fisheye menu dynamically computes the distortion function based on the available space and these input parameters. So, if the focus length is set to a large number (i.e., 20), then this will push the peripheral items to be very small, and as the user moves the cursor, there will be a lot of distortion. If, however, the focus length is set to a small number (i.e., 5), then there will be more room for peripheral items and they will all be a bit larger. Figure 2 shows this trade-off."
Many researchers have conducted comparative evaluations of fisheye menus and scrolling menus. The paper by Hollands et. al, cited in the previous post, is one such example. You can find related research either on the web, or at your nearest university library under the categories of "Human Computer Interaction", "computer science", "psychology", "human factors", and "cognitive science". Use the keywords "fisheye views", "fisheye menu", and "evaluation".
-Sam
Posted by samuel at May 31, 2002 10:09 PMvery interesant and very creative
Congratulations!
This is cool. I do have one usability suggestion though: The fish eye effect only responds to the mouse. If I focus the list and am using the keyboard to jump to an item in the list, the selection jumps, but the fish eye effect does not follow. I believe that it should as I might want to use alpha-searching to scan the list and I need to see if I've hit the selection I was looking for.
Posted by: Drew Marsh at June 10, 2002 07:20 PMHi. Keep up the good work with Flash and Usability. I think your work is really important, because something has to be done to evaluate the new ideas for navigating and this is really good start. This is also really good way to evaluate Flash from the different point of view, the old view was:" flash is 99% evil".
With Best Wishes,
Usabily "Professional"
Posted by: at June 14, 2002 12:41 PMSamuel,
Per our previous discussions, I have cleaned up my example using the Fisheye Menu and have added it to my site under Presentation Examples.
To make life simple, here's the direct URL:
http://www.pmc-computergraphics.com/buddy/
I rather like how it turned out but still think pulling the menu into a new window and using LocalConnection might be worth a shot. Now if I can just figure out how to code that! (grin)
...Mike
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