.title
Menu Size

.synonyms
Size

.definition
Design principles for minimizing the menu size.

.contents

	Screen space is a valuable resource, and pie menus with long labels or
	lots of items can take up a lot of space on the screen.
	
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.tab 0 .line MINIMIZING THE SIZE
	One way to minimize the amount of screen space a menu takes up is to
	use compact labels.  Wide labels are best placed near the top and
	bottom of a menu, where they can fit inside a smaller radius.  Wide
	labels near the left and right sides of a menu tend to make it much
	larger.
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.tab 0 .line SUBMENUS
	Another way of making menus smaller is to use fewer items in them.
	Submenus can be used to group together logically related items.  Using
	a small menu of nested submenus is often better than using one menu
	with many items.  A set of nested menus is easier to learn and use if
	the submenus are orthogonal, with similar item arrangements, since
	there are fewer different sets of directions for the user to remember.
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.tab 0 .line EIGHT ITEM MENUS
	Eight is a convenient number of items to have in a pie menu. Four is
	an even nicer number. Eight and four item menus are reasonably sized,
	uncrowded, symmetric, and have convenient pairs of opposite
	directions.  Experienced pie menu users can swiftly and confidently
	mouse ahead thought such menus, with their eyes closed!  Another
	advantage designing eight and four item pie menus is that they can be
	easily used with a numeric or arrow keypad instead of a mouse.
	
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	==> .~ Conclusion~