Menu (Control)

A list of action, routing, and settings choices. The types of menus are a pull-down menu, cascaded menu, and pop-up menu.

[ Guidelines | Essential Related Topics | Supplemental Related Topics ]

When To Use

Use a menu to present action, routing, or settings choices that a user can select while performing tasks.

Guidelines

	When a user selects a routing choice that leads to a menu, always display the menu even if all of the choices in it are unavailable.
	Do not display unavailable-state emphasis on routing choices that lead to pull-down menus or cascaded menus.
	Display unavailable-state emphasis on action and settings choices that cannot be selected in the current context.
	Allow the cursor to wrap at the top and bottom of a menu.
	Except in the Selected menu, a pop-up menu, or when a user switches between Full menus and Short menus do not add or remove choices from a menu to indicate availability of choices. Instead, display unavailable choices with unavailable-state emphasis.
	If a choice is never available to a particular user, do not display it in a menu, and do not save space for it in a menu.
	Place related choices together.
	Use separators to distinguish groups of related choices.
	Place product-specific choices either following a group of related predefined choices or at the bottom of a menu.
	Keep the relative order of identical choices the same among different menus. For example, keep the order of the Cut, Copy and Paste choices the same in the Edit pull-down menu and the pop-up menu for an object.
	Use graphics, text, or both for each choice in a menu depending on which best identifies the choice. For example, a menu for a drawing product could be made up of graphic fill-patterns rather than text.
	Dynamically add text or graphics to a choice to make the meaning of that choice clearer in a given context.
	Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a choice or object name unless the choice or object name contains an abbreviation, acronym, or proper noun that should be capitalized.
	Avoid using settings choices in menus unless a user specifically requests to place settings choices in menus. Put settings choices in a Tab control in a settings view for the object instead.
	If a menu contains a group of settings choices that are not mutually exclusive, display a check mark to the left of each choice that has been selected. Remove the check mark when the choice is deselected.
	If a menu contains a group of settings choices that are mutually exclusive, display unavailable-state emphasis on the choice that currently applies to the object. Remove the unavailable-state emphasis when the choice no longer applies to the object.
	Place at least two choices in a menu.
	Avoid placing more than 15 choices in a menu. Use cascaded menus to reduce the number of choices in a menu.
	Provide a shortcut key for each frequently used choice in a pull-down menu or cascaded menu.
	Provide the predefined mnemonic for each predefined textual choice in a menu.
	Provide a unique mnemonic for each product-specific textual choice in a menu, unless no meaningful unique mnemonic can be found.

Essential Related Topics

Cascaded Menu
Choice
Mnemonic
Pop-Up Menu
Shortcut Key
Unavailable-State Emphasis (Cue)

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