Tracking Menus George Fitzmaurice, Azam Khan, Robert Pieké, Bill Buxton, Gordon Kurtenbach Alias|wavefront 210 King Street East Toronto, Ontario M5A 1J7, Canada E-mail: {gf | akhan | rpieke | gordo}@aw.sgi.com;
[email protected] ABSTRACT We describe a new type of graphical user interface widget, In keyboard-based systems, alternate ways of switching known as a “tracking menu.” A tracking menu consists of a between tools (keyboard accelerator techniques) are cluster of graphical buttons, and as with traditional menus, typically provided to reduce travel time. For example, in the cursor can be moved within the menu to select and Adobe Photoshop, a very popular feature is an accelerator interact with items. However, unlike traditional menus, technique in which the system switches from the current when the cursor hits the edge of the menu, the menu moves tool to the pan tool when the user depresses the space bar to continue tracking the cursor. Thus, the menu always key. Thus, trips to and from the tool palette are not stays under the cursor and close at hand. necessary to use the panning tool. In this paper we define the behavior of tracking menus, In pen-only systems, there is no keyboard available and show unique affordances of the widget, present a variety of therefore other techniques are required to reduce travel examples, and discuss design characteristics. We examine time. A pen-barrel button could be used to switch tools but one tracking menu design in detail, reporting on usability these buttons are often mistakenly pressed, causing an studies and our experience integrating the technique into a error, or are very awkward to press.