Links to Style Guides (Was Re: guessing, speculation, and opinion)

["Ben 'The Con Man' Kahn" <xkahn cybersites com>]

On Fri, 24 Jul 1998, Dan Kaminsky wrote:

> Now, quit mentioning HCI literature and give us some *links* to some.  Also,
> can you please explain pie menus?  I've never heard of them.

	I'm reading through my email for the first time this weekend, so
maybe this has been answered before, but maybe I have some information
which others have missed.

	A pie menu is a menu which is shaped like a circle.  The mouse
pointer starts centered in the middle of the circle and the menu items are
on the outside.  Like this:

              File

         Edit  .  Window

              Help

	A lot of research has gone into these menus.  The company which
makes Alias (now owned by SGI I believe) did a lot of research into them.
(They have a very active UI testing center.)  A lot of research has gone
into the number of menu items can go into a menu at any one time, the
effects of dynamic menu items on the menus, user memory, etc.  

	Often a line is drawn to the menu item currently being selected,
and submenus are drawn in the NEW center.  I may be be explaining it very
well, but I'll look for some links.

	Speaking of which, we may want to look at OTHER Alias research.
They have done some interesting things with transparent or translucent
windows/menus.

	As for Style Guide links:

* http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/mac/mac.html -- Mac style guide
* http://www.ambysoft.com/userInterfaceDesign.html
* http://www.indiana.edu/~iirg/RESEARCH/modality.html -- Icons

	Evaluating UIs:

* http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/

	HCI:

* http://www.hcibib.org/ -- The HCI Bibliography 
* http://www.acm.org/sigchi/educhi/ -- People involved in HCI
* http://www.acm.org/sigchi/

	Book references I suggest:

* Ben Shneiderman. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective
Human-Computer Interaction, Third Edition. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley,
1997. 

	Well, I have a lot more, but that should get things started.
(Unless others already did that!  <G>)  I once had a link to a full text
of a style guide.  I don't remember where I found it....

						-Ben

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