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336 CHAPTER 12 Automated data collection methods

SIMULTANEOUS VS. SEQUENTIAL MENUS
Computer interfaces may be designed to present choices in a hierarchical,
sequential manner, even if the items in the menu are not necessarily
hierarchical. A restaurant selection tool for a city might allow users to select a
neighborhood, followed by a price range, and finally a type of cuisine, but this
is not the only possibility order. A simultaneous menu scheme would allow
selections to be made in each of these three criteria at any time.
A comparison of the strictly sequential menu approach versus the
simultaneous menu approach used a locally hosted web server to present
alternative menu structures for the same underlying data set (Hochheiser and
Shneiderman, 2000): US Census Bureau economic data for counties in the state

FIGURE 12.4
Sequential menus: users choose first from counties, then from categories, and finally
from years, in order to get to a detail page.
From Hochheiser, H., Shneiderman, B., 2000. Performance benefits of simultaneous over sequential menus
as task complexity increases. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction 12 (2), 173–192.