Thom Holwerda over at OSNews.com has been writing a regular series that he calls "Common Usability Terms" but the title is misleading. The series is actually quite an interesting take on different graphic user interface techniques and metaphors, discussing both historical origins and the functional motivations.
Very readable and just another demonstration that OSNews.com is improving every day and becoming essential reading for developers.
This is the ninth article in a series on common usability and graphical user interface related terms [part I | part II | part III | part IV | part V | part VI | part VII | part VIII]. On the internet, and especially in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user interface design. In part IX, we are going to talk about the menu.
