Now here's a rough shot of the menu of choices I get when I press Windows XP's 'Programs' menu option. I always cringe when I get this because I have to read at least half the screen to find the program what I want to run.
Q: Why does it take so long to choose ?
A: Because the entries are NOT in alphabetical order !
The order seems to be haphazard and random forcing one to read the hopeless jumble. I thought I heard from somewhere that this was a smart menu that knew to put the most frequently chosen programs first.. who knows, maybe it's true, but it doesn't work for me !
I've always felt that one thing that a successful User Interface does is to rely on things that we internalized by the time of our 5th birthday... well, OK, our 6th or 7th birthday since that's when we (English speakers) learned about alphabetical order.
This Windows XP menu fails that test.
Give me alphabetical order Puh-leeze !
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