Hierarchy or List?: Comparing Menu Navigation by Emergent Users

With rapid penetration of mobile devices in India, it has become important to understand how well can emergent users navigate menus. Literature shows somewhat inconsistent result in their performances with menu elements organized in a deep hierarchy, in a shallow hierarchy, and in a list. The current study investigates the performance of emergent users on a navigation task using two different menus (5-level deep hierarchy vs. 5-page list). Prototypes were made with 3 separate interfaces; namely graphical user interface (GUI), audio only interface (AOI) and audio-visual interface (AVI). A total of 24 emergent users carried out 6 test-tasks each (GUI-deep, GUI-list, AOI-deep, AOI-list, AVI-deep, AVI-list). Results show that participants navigate faster-using list menu on GUI and AVI, whereas they perform faster-using hierarchical navigation on AOI. Modalities with visual elements (GUI, AVI) performed faster than the audio (AOI). We discuss the implications of our findings for designing interactive devices for emergent users and possibilities for future research.

[1]  Nancy J. Cooke,et al.  Design of Menus , 1997 .

[2]  Janan Al-Awar Smither,et al.  A Comparison of Broad Versus Deep Auditory Menu Structures , 2008, Hum. Factors.

[3]  Kentaro Toyama,et al.  Full-context videos for first-time, non-literate PC users , 2007, 2007 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development.

[4]  Kentaro Toyama,et al.  Designing mobile interfaces for novice and low-literacy users , 2011, TCHI.

[5]  Shumin Zhai,et al.  Dial and see: tackling the voice menu navigation problem with cross-device user experience integration , 2005, UIST '05.

[6]  Anirudha Joshi,et al.  A Comparison of List vs. Hierarchical UIs on Mobile Phones for Non-literate Users , 2013, INTERACT.

[7]  Kentaro Toyama,et al.  A comparison of mobile money-transfer UIs for non-literate and semi-literate users , 2009, CHI.

[8]  Anirudha Joshi,et al.  Effects of visuals, menu depths, and menu positions on IVR usage by non-tech savvy users , 2014, IHCI.

[9]  Bruce Balentine.  Re-Engineering the Speech Menu , 1999 .

[10]  Kentaro Toyama,et al.  Some evidence for the impact of limited education on hierarchical user interface navigation , 2013, CHI.

[11]  Paul Resnick,et al.  Skip and scan: cleaning up telephone interface , 1992, CHI '92.

[12]  George Engelbeck,et al.  Designing Voice Menu Applications for Telephones , 1997 .

[13]  Anirudha Joshi,et al.  Technology adoption by 'emergent' users: the user-usage model , 2013, APCHI.

[14]  Jerome Lewis,et al.  Supporting Collaboration with Non-Literate Forest Communities in the Congo-Basin , 2017, CSCW.

[15]  Nitendra Rajput,et al.  A comparative study of speech and dialed input voice interfaces in rural India , 2009, CHI.

[16]  Kentaro Toyama,et al.  Text-Free User Interfaces for Illiterate and Semi-Literate Users , 2006, 2006 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development.

[17]  Ronald Rosenfeld,et al.  HealthLine: Speech-based access to health information by low-literate users , 2007, 2007 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development.

[18]  Matt Huenerfauth,et al.  Design Approaches for Developing User-Interfaces Accessible to Illiterate Users , 2002 .

[19]  Sally Grisedale,et al.  Designing a graphical user interface for healthcare workers in rural India , 1997, CHI.

[20]  Kentaro Toyama,et al.  Optimal audio-visual representations for illiterate users of computers , 2007, WWW '07.