The HIG on Action Menus

Use an Action pop-up menu when you want to provide a visible shortcut to a handful of useful commands. Although contextual menus also provide shortcuts to a small number of commands, the fact that they are hidden makes them difficult for new users to discover and for all users to remember. […] If you are thinking of providing (or already provide) an application-wide contextual menu, you might choose to replace it with an Action menu control in the toolbar.

This reeks.

The word replace suggests you should use Action menus instead of contextual menus, while my understanding is that Action menus are simply redundant to right-clicking.

If contextual menus aren’t a big deal and apparently difficult for people to remember, why exactly did Apple capitulate and start producing multibutton mice after all these years? Why the convenience of the two finger right-click?

clarko

Chris Clark is an interaction designer in Vancouver, BC. Chris hits the Twitter like Sonny hits trees, and rumor has it he likes Piña Coladas and getting caught in the rain.

This link and the associated commentary were first published here on November 2, 2008.