Searching for Items in Menus: The Effects of Organization and Type of Target

Methods of organizing menu structures have received considerable empirical attention. Studies have compared categorical and alphabetical organizations with conflicting results. This experiment examined the effects of these and other organization types on visual search performance with 64-item menus. The effect of target type was also assessed by comparing performance using explicit targets as stimuli with that obtained using target definitions. Categorical menu organization was found to be superior to an alphabetical ordering, particularly when definitions are provided as stimuli.