The role of menu titles as a navigational aid in hierarchical menus

A between-subjects experiment was conducted to determine the effects of the presence/absence of menu titles on the search time and the number of incorrect choices made when navigating a hierarchical menu structure. Subjects were required to search for a randomly selected target item in a four level, three choices per level (4 3 ) menu structure. Subjects in the experimental group had titles for each sub-menu screen. Titles reflected the path traversed from the previous sub-menu screens. Control group subjects did not have titles displayed. While subjects in the experimental group did not search at a statistically significant faster rate, as the depth of the search (level) increased they did search with greater accuracy than those in the control group.