Best Practices: The Windows XP Start Menu

The Windows XP Start Menu

The Windows XP Start Menu is an example of good practices in User Interface design because of its power and simplicity. It is arguably the most central and universal interface component in the Windows XP user experience, guiding the Human-Computer Interaction for millions of desktop computer users everyday.

Key interface features of the Windows XP Start Menu are:

• Applications half (white bg) -- Often-used computer programs are two clicks away from anywhere in Windows XP.
• Fixed user-chosen applications are pinned to top half.
• Recently-used programs are put in the bottom half by the operating system according to usage.
• Computer location half (blue bg) -- Quick navigation to information stored on the computer system.
• Different types of documents and media files are navigatable in special folders.
• Folder hierarchies are navigatable directly from Start Menu.
• Other features such as Turn Off Computer are easily accessible, non-regularly used programs are hidden away in All Programs submenu, etc.

Some useful ideas to take from this interface are:

• Hide rarely-used items -- The "All Programs" item is what the entire Start Menu looked like in early versions of Windows, showing all available programs installed on the computer. Realizing that most of these programs were rarely used, the interface designers cleverly hid the full list away.
• Automatic vs. Manual: Easy vs. Control -- In creating a short list of programs, the designers had a choice to use a list of programs that the user picked for themself, or one that a computer algorithm picked automatically for the user (based on recently- and often-used programs). They included both to get the best of both worlds, static custumization with the user in control (top-left programs users "pinned" to the Start Menu), and dynamic custumization without the user doing any work (bottom-left programs selected by Windows). Note that the automatically generated list of programs will not repeat a program that the user pinned to the Start Menu in the user-defined section.
• Use of Color -- Color adds extra distinctions between sections and icons, possibly drawing the user faster to what they are looking for by giving them an extra queue.
• Hierarchical Menus -- Easy navigation, even to deeply nested files, directly from the menu without the wait of opening other windows.
• Categorized by Content, not Implementation -- By providing access points to files through the "My Documents", "My Music", and other folders rather than the full directory structure of the hard disk, the developers made a strong point to design the interface around the user rather than the technical implementation. The physical device "My Computer" is particularly de-emphasized by putting it down the list whereas most operating systems would put it on top. With all these shortcuts to programs and files available in the Start Menu, the user is freed from having to remember the fairly irrelevent directory structure of the operating system and is largely freed from the tedious searching and navigating through the hard disk and other devices that they would normally need to do to use a computer. As a side benefit, this separation of design from technical implementation will free the technical developers to restructure their file system implementation as they please, even, for instance, moving the My Documents folder to an external web server.
• Universal Availability -- The Start Menu is available throughout the Windows user experience. This crucial interface piece is (almost) always visible regardless of what program or task the user is doing, providing a sense of continuity and comfort. The user can always find their way around the computer when the convenient Start Menu is around.

By Boaz Gurdin, COGS 121, 4/15/2003