Calculation of Totally Optimized Button Configurations Using Fitts' Law
Alfred Schmitt, Peter Oel · International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction · 1999
This paper addresses the problem of optimal placement and configuration for a set of buttons on a graphical user interface (GUI). We present an optimization algorithm that reduces the average time necessary for pointing device motions. Fitts’ law (Fitts 1954) is used to estimate the transfer time for cursor movements between buttons. Numerous studies in the literature focus on the verification and application of Fitts’ law in a rather direct way (MacKenzie 1992). Our work differs in its goal: The problem of finding totally optimized button configurations is a non-trivial optimization task and is still an open issue.