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In user interface design, a menu is a list of options presented to the user.
Touch user interfaces and menus that accept codes to select menu options without navigation are two examples of non-linear interfaces.
Some of the input devices used in menu interfaces are , keyboards, computer mouse, , and microphones. In a voice-activated system, such as interactive voice response, a microphone sends a recording of the user's voice to a speech recognition system, which translates it to a command.
A computer using a graphical user interface presents menus with a combination of Plain text and symbols to represent choices. By clicking on one of the symbols or text, the operator is selecting the instruction that the symbol represents. A context menu is a menu in which the choices presented to the operator are automatically modified according to the current context in which the operator is working.
A common use of menus is to provide convenient access to various operations such as saving or opening a computer file, quitting a computer program, or manipulating data. Most provide some form of pull-down or Popup menu. Pull-down menus are the type commonly used in (usually near the top of a window or screen), which are most often used for performing actions, whereas pop-up (or "fly-out") menus are more likely to be used for setting a value, and might appear anywhere in a window.
According to traditional human interface guidelines, menu names were always supposed to be verbs, such as "file", "edit" and so on. Apple Human Interface Guidelines – Menus This has been largely ignored in subsequent user interface developments. A single-word verb however is sometimes unclear, and so as to allow for multiple word menu names, the idea of a vertical menu was invented, as seen in NeXTSTEP.
Menus are now also seen in consumer electronics, starting with and that gained on-screen displays in the early 1990s, and extending into and . Menus allow the control of settings like tint, brightness, display contrast, bass and Treble clef, and other functions such as channel memory and closed captioning. Other electronics with text display can also have menus, anything from business telephone systems with digital telephones, to that can be set to respond only to specific in a specific area. Other more recent electronics in the 2000s also have menus, such as digital media players.
Usability of submenus has been criticized as difficult, because of the narrow height that must be crossed by the pointer. The steering law predicts that this movement will be slow, and any error in touching the boundaries of the parent menu entry will hide the submenu. Some techniques proposed to alleviate these errors are keeping the submenu open while moving the pointer in diagonal, and using mega menus designed to enhance scannability and categorization of its contents. Negative user experience with submenus is referred to as "menu diving".
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