Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dciem.UUCP
Path: utzoo!dciem!ntt
From: ntt@dciem.UUCP (ntt)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Menus bad?
Message-ID: <295@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Aug-83 18:04:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.295
Posted: Thu Aug 18 18:04:41 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Aug-83 19:17:14 EDT
References: utcsrgv.1969, <1466@tekid.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M, Toronto, Canada
Lines: 26


     The Ontario government is sponsoring public information terminals at
various popular locations such as shopping malls and tourist attractions.
They're called Teleguide and use Telidon graphics.  The interface is
strictly menu-oriented (unlike some other similar systems I have seen
that let you select a page by menu OR by directly giving its address).

     I find that the best way to find out what is available is accidentally
(while waiting for a terminal)... the other day I noticed someone looking
at foreign exchange rates*, but he didn't display the page with the Australian
dollar before going back to the root menu, and I was left guessing whether
to look under "Ontario information" or "Toronto information".

     But a bad example doesn't means that menus have to be bad: consider
the sequence... cd /usr/src, lc, cd cmd, lc, cd local, lc, cd graf, ...
This is very much like as a menu system with the menu displayed only on
request, but note also that the user can skip levels as desired.
Maybe menu systems should include ".."!

     *Supplied by the Bank of America Canada, of course.  Much of the
information on the system is advertising.  Frequently the graphics are
used to display a corporate logo or "pretty" picture BEFORE the data...

     Some words used in this item are probably trademarks of somebody.

Mark Brader, NTT Systems Inc.