Menu 1.1

• Keyboard mnemonics are designated by capital letters.
• In this, the mnemonics are not the first letter which makes them look uncommon.
• There is no item grouping done in the pull-down.
• The differences in basic functions are not obvious and the more destructive operations like Undo, Clear and Delete are positioned close to standard actions like Copy, Paste etc., increasing the chances of accidental selection.

Menu 1.2

• Keyboard mnemonics are designated by underlines but not by capital letters.
• Choice descriptions now assume more common and recognizable shapes.
• Groupings, through use of white space, are established for choices in the pull-down.
• The different functions are much more obvious and separation is provided for the destructive actions.
• The groupings of the functions are done through use of separating lines.
• Keyboard alternatives are right-aligned as well as enclosed in parentheses to visually deemphasize them, thereby reducing their visual competition with the choices.

Menu 2.1

• All alternatives are presented creating a very crowded series of choices in a difficult-to-scan horizontal array.
• No groupings are provided and an alphabetic order causes intermixing of what appear to be different functions.
• While menu breadth is preferred to excessive menu depth, too many choices are presented here.

Menu 2.2 and Menu 2.3

• The File, Function and Help are now presented separately while the cascading Function menu requires an excessive number of steps to complete selection.
• Excessive levels of depth are difficult to scan and lead to one’s getting lost.
• Some have referred to this problem as cascade confusion.

Menu 2.4, Menu 2.5 and Menu 2.6

• Application and Tool menu bar items are created and all alternatives now exist on one pull-down menu. The number of steps necessary to reach any alternative is minimized and easier scanning of all items is permitted.

• Menu 2.1 is a very poor menu design, whereas Menu 2.2 and Menu 2.3 are better than Menu 2.1 but still a poor menu design.
• Menu 2.4, Menu 2.5 and Menu 2.6 are much more reasonable solutions as compared to other menu designs.