A user performance evaluation of personalised menus

This study investigates empirically the use of five different interactive menu conditions: adaptable, adaptive split, adaptive/adaptable highlighted, adaptive/adaptable minimised and mixed-initiative menus. The aim of the study is to compare the usability of these five menus, with regard to task accomplishment time and frequency of error occurrence. It also aims to examine the effects of different levels of adaptation and adaptability. In order to carry out this comparative investigation, five menus were built. These were then tested dependently using 30 subjects. Results show that overall the adaptable menu was surprisingly the best in terms of efficiency. Errors were also reduced in the adaptable menu by 50% when subjects customised their menus. Unexpectedly, subjects were slower using the adaptive split, mixed-initiative and minimised menus.