5. Menu Interface
Advantages | Disadvantages |
---|---|
Extremely easy to use. Someone who has never seen the interface before can work out what to do | A poorly designed menu interface may be slow to use |
There are no commands to learn or remember | It can be irritating if there are too many menu screens to work through - users get annoyed or bored if it takes too long |
Step-by-step options are given so that the user doesn't have to remember anything | You often can't go to the exact place you want right at the start. You have to work your way through the menu screens even if you know where you want to get to. |
Even if you don't know what to do, you can usually guess your way around the options | The menu can take up a large part of the screen so you have to keep flicking back and forwards between applications |
Menu interfaces don't have to be visual, they can be spoken - good for telephones or for visually impaired people | If the menu is poorly designed it might be hard to read e.g. writing is too small for people with poor sight, colours might clash and be difficult to read, font style might be hard to read. |
They don't need huge amounts of processing power or memory | |
It is fairly easy for the software programmer to create the same menus in different languages |
Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you
Click on this link: Menu Driven Interface