A marking menu allows a user to perform a menu selection by either popping-up a radial (or pie) menu, or by making a straight mark in the direction of the desired menu item without popping-up the menu. A hierarchic marking menu uses hierarchic radial menus and "zig-zag" marks to select from the hierarchy. This paper experimentally investigates the bounds on how many items can be in each level, and how deep the hierarchy can be, before using a marking to select an item becomes too slow or prone to errors.

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An experimental GUI paradigm is presented which is based on the design goals of maximizing the amount of screen used for application data, reducing the amount that the UI diverts visual attentions from the application data, and increasing the quality of input. In pursuit of these goals, we integrated the non-standard UI technologies of multi-sensor tablets, toolglass, transparent UI components, and marking menus. We describe a working prototype of our new paradigm, the rationale behind it and our experiences introducing it into an existing application. Finally, we presents some of the lessons learned: prototypes are useful to break the barriers imposed by conventional GUI design and some of their ideas can still be retrofitted seamlessly into products. Furthermore, the added functionality is not measured only in terms of user performance, but also by the quality of interaction, which allows artists to create new graphic vocabularies and graphic styles.

A marking menu is designed to allow a user to perform a menu selection by either popping-up a radial (or pie) menu, or by making a straight mark in the direction of the desired menu item without popping-up the menu. Previous evaluations in laboratory settings have shown the potential of marking menus. This paper reports on a case study of user behavior with marking menus in a real work situation. The study demonstrates the following: First, marking menus are used as designed.When users become expert with the menus, marks are used extensively.However, the transition to using marks is not one way. Expert users still switch back to menus to refresh their memory of menu layout.Second, marking is an extremely efficient interaction technique. Using a mark on average was 3.5 times faster than selection using the menu. Finally, design principles can be followed that make menu item/mark associations easier to learn, and interaction efficient.