The Influence of Menu Structure and Layout on Usability of Smartwatches

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect of smartwatches' menu structure and layout on user performance and satisfaction. A total of 30 younger and older adults participated in this study. Usability testing was first conducted, and it identified the two most serious usability problems of smartwatches: confusing information structure and interface content. Furthermore, results showed that menu disorientation was predominant. Therefore, prototypes with a different menu structure and menu layout were developed and tested in two subsequent experiments. The menu structure experiment indicated that the tree structure of the menu is better than the linear structure in terms of performance and satisfaction, and the two-branch hierarchical menu contributed to better performance than the three-branch hierarchical menu. The menu layout experiment indicated that menus with high visual density had a slightly better performance but lower satisfaction than low visual density. In the end, design guidelines about smartwatch menus were proposed.