Single Item Search and Selection in Hand-Held Devices: A Pilot Study on
the Effects of Font Size & Menu Design
Ketan Babaria
Sasha Giacoppo
Ugur Kuter
Institute for Systems Research
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Department of Psychology
Catholic University
Washington, DC 20064 USA
Department of Computer Science
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Abstract
There is much literature regarding the effects of differing font
sizes and menu types on a user’s ability to efficiently complete a
search task. However, almost all of this literature investigated
these issues on large sized monitors. This experiment
investigated the effects of differing font sizes and menu types on
a search task on a personal digital assistant (PDA), e.g. Palm
Pilot. Results found that participants are quicker in a simple
search task when using scrolling menus, as opposed to expanding
menus. Results also suggest that small font size has an affect of
performance only for expanding menus.
Related Work
In this section, we provide our discussion on the previous
research that is related to this paper. In the following
subsections, we will present the current status of research
on mainly three fields: research on the font size, research
on the menu design and research on the scrolling effects on
the user performance.
Research on Font Size. Altering font size on a smallscreen size may have dramatic impacts on user
performance. Designers want to present as much
information to the user as possible so as to avoid scrolling,
clicking, panning etc. It would only seem logical to alter
font sizes to be as small as possible on a small-screen
interface. Performance on search tasks may be affected by
different font sizes, however, it is unknown at which font
size the performance significantly declines, if at all.
Introduction
The increase in use of mobile, hand-held devices presents
an entirely new list of design challenges. These products,
and their interfaces, differ greatly from the most common
computing technology, the personal computer. In contrast
to the PC, mobile hand-held devices have different
functionalities, screen sizes, screen resolutions, screen
colors, input capabilities, and even different types of users.
Examples of these products are personal digital assistants
(PDAs), cellular phones, and MP3 players.
The greatest advantage of these products is their small
size; their greatest drawback is their small-screen
interfaces. The screen size of a typical PDA, like a Palm
Pilot, ranges from 3” to 4” diagonally, with resolutions
ranging from 160x160 pixels to 240x320 pixels. Cellphone
screen sizes are even smaller, being 1-2” wide
(diagonally), and resolutions typically 96x96 pixels. The
amount of information that can be displayed on screens of
these sizes is limited, especially when compared to PCs,
which are typically 13” and larger, with resolutions going
up to 1280x1024 pixels and more.
This limitation of screen “real-estate”, and the consequent
alteration of information to fit on these displays, may
affect the ability of users to acquire information and
perform tasks on these devices. The greatest challenge to
designers is maximizing user task performance on these
small-screen interfaces.
Figure 1. Reading speed, in seconds (Source: Bernard & Mills,
2000)
The available investigations of font size suggest that
reading speed and accuracy increase as font size increases,
but with diminishing gains in performance. Legge, Pelli, &
Schleske (1985) found that reading speed improves with
an increase in text size, but only up to a critical point,
In this investigation, we examine the effects of 1) font size
and 2) menu design on a task that measures the time to
search and identify a single item.
1
where reading speed then levels off. Bernard & Mills
(2000) tested subjects on the reading speed of passages
between 10-pt and 12-pt fonts, on a PC monitor. No
significant differences in reading speed and legibility were
found between the different size fonts (except for antialiased fonts, which cannot be presented on small-screen
interfaces) (see Figure 1).
medium amount of white space being the most preferred.
White space is a design issue related to font size.
Figure 3. Reading time, in seconds, for fonts as a function of
size (Source: Tullis, et al, 1995)
Figure
2. Effects of presentation rate on reading
comphrehension by font size (Source: Russel, et al, 2001)
In terms of user preference, medium to large font sizes are
preferred over smaller font sizes. Russel, Hull, & Wesley
(2001) found that users preferred 20-and 28-pt fonts to 12pt fonts. Subjects in Bernard & Mills (2000) experiment
selected 12-pt fonts first more often than 10-pt fonts.
Russel, Hull, & Wesley (2001) found no significant
differences between 12-, 20-, an 28-pt font sizes, at
differing speeds of scrolling text presentation (see Fig 2.)
Again, it is important to note that all these investigations
were performed on PC monitors, where resolutions and
screen-sizes are different from small-screen interfaces. The
effects of font size on user performance in PDAs are
unknown.
Tullis, Boynton, & Hersh (1995) examined the effects of
font sizes (6, 6.75, 7.5, 8.25, 9, 9.75-point sizes) and font
on reading time, accuracy, and preference. There were
significant main effects for font type and font size for
reading time (Fig. 3, notice the downward trend), accuracy
(Fig. 4, notice the upward trend), and subjective
preference, with larger font sizes having better
performance for all measures.
Bernard, Liao, & Mills found that older adults preferred
larger fonts (14-pt font vs. 12-pt font), found them more
legible, and in fact, promoted faster reading of passages
(Fig. 5).
Spool, et al. (1997;1998), investigating the effects of white
space on user task performance in websites, found that
users “fared worse in terms of users’ success in finding
information” than more dense layouts. They reasoned that
users typically skim web pages for information rather than
read it, so the more tightly packed the information the
better. However, Bernard, Chaparro, & Thomasson (2000),
in a more controlled experiment (they used the same
website, with differing amounts of white space, as
compared to Spool et al, who compared 11 different
websites), found no difference in performance. The only
significant differences were user preferences, with a
Figure 4. Percent corect for fonts as a function of size (Source:
Tullis, et al, 1995)
2
Research on Scrolling. The limited size of screens on
hand-held devices means that more information has to be
squeezed into a smaller display. Scrolling is a method to
accommodate larger amounts of information on these
smaller screens.
Scrolling certainly requires more time in terms of motor
actions, however it may also require more of the users’
cognitive and attentional resources, which could affect
search time. On larger screens, users’ look from location to
location, as opposed to scrolling, which requires physical
action to move from location to location. (Riesel &
Shneiderman, 1986). Scrolling demands more resources to
locate and navigate within and between screens. Scrolling
dissolves the fixed relationship between reference points
(i.e. end of pages) of the information presented, which is
detrimental to memory of spatial location (Ohara, et. al.,
1999). The resulting increase of confusion can affect the
time required for a user to accomplish a task.
Figure 5. Mean reading time, in seconds (Source: Bernard,
Liao, & Mills, 2001)
Research on Menu Design. Menu design, as a component
of interfaces, has been the subject of much investigation
regarding the human-computer interaction, especially with
regards to the search task. A general guideline of menu
design is that broad menu design is more efficient than
deep menu design when searching for specific items of
information. Kiger (1984) found that broader trees (ones
with more items per level) rated higher on measure of
speed, accuracy, and user preference than deeper trees
(more levels). Landauer & Nachbar (1985) found that task
performance increased as breadth increased and depth
decreased, and provided a predictive model of traversal
time for item search on menus. These findings were
corroborated by the findings of Norman & Chin (1988)
and Wallace et al.(1987).
Excessive scrolling may decrease the users’ ability to keep
track of where they are, what they have been looking for,
and affect overall search and identification time. It is
important to investigate if menu designs that require more
scrolling, as opposed to other methods (e.g. clicking to
view submenus), result in longer search times and more
search errors.
Experiment
In our experiments, a 2X3X2 within-subjects design was
used (menu type X font size X item distance). The two
menu types used were sequential menus and expanding
menus. The 3 font sizes used were small, medium, and
large. The small, medium, and large font sizes correspond
to 5/7, 7/9, 8/11 pixels, respectively, for lowercase and
uppercase characters. The small, medium, and large font
sizes also correspond to 11,9, and 8 lines of text per screen
on the PDA. Item distances were 1/3 of the way down the
menu and 2/3 of the way down the menu. A COMPAQ
IPAQ Pocket PC running Windows CE 3.0 with 5.1" x
3.2" x .62" screen dimensions was used as the
experimental environment. The backlight setting was set to
‘indoors’ in all the experiments.
Zaphiris, et al (1999) specifically examined the differences
in response time between expandable indexes that provide
full menu context and sequential menus that provided only
partial context. They found that response time was
significantly lower for participants using sequential menus.
As the depth of menus increased, the number of selection
errors also increased.
Other methods of presenting information items on screens
have also been investigated. Moore and Zabrucky (1995)
showed that presenting complete sentences one at a time
on-line and prompting the reader to click a button to
advance a sentence resulted in better comprehension than
reading a complete text on paper, however, the comparison
was not compared to reading text on screen.
Our Predictive Model. We offer a model that will predict
the total time required to find a single item on a PDA:
Search Time = {((screens) x (lines of text/screen) x (Tk) ) + Tc}
These investigations support the principle of broad menu
design during search and identification tasks. However, all
investigations were performed on PC monitors,
highlighting the need to investigate item search and
selection on the smaller, constrained interfaces of PDAs
and cell phones.
where,
 screens is the # of screens viewed (this will be the
either be the result of a link selected or a full-page scroll)
 lines of text/screen is the number of lines of text that
can be viewed on a screen at one time, for a certain font)
3

Tk is the scan time constant, in secs/line (a constant
for the time to scan a line of text, for a certain font size)
 Tc is the total time to click on a display item (e.g.
scroll bar, link, etc.)
Hypotheses. We have the following hypotheses:
1. Decision time is greater using interface with detail
view than list view
2. Decision time is greater when the font size is medium
(12 pts) than when its small (10 pts) or when its large
(14pts)
3. The number of errors is greater using interface with
detail view than list view
4. The number of errors is greater when the font size is
small (10 pts) than when its medium (12 pts) or when
its large (14pts)
Participants. Twenty-four participants (7 females and 17
males) volunteered for this study. They ranged in age from
22 to 30, with a mean age of 24.7 (S.D. = 2.2 years).
Participants’ subjective computer experience was a mean
of 7.8 on a 9-point Likert scale (S.D.= 2.01)
Pilot Tests and Results. The pilots test run before the
actual experiment helped us to refine the testing materials
and procedure. Changes made based on the pilot tests
were mostly minor: small adjustments of relative font sizes
in the interfaces, the amount of white-space in each
interface, re-wording of certain questions in the pre-task
and post-task questionnaires.
Figure 6. Expanding Menus with Medium Fonts.
Task Design. Six interfaces were designed using plain
HTML, representing all combinations of the 2 menu types
(Figures 6 and 7) and 3 font sizes. The two item distances,
of 1/3 or 2/3 down the menu, are both in each of the six
interfaces. This comprised the participants with twelve
tasks to complete. The task was about finding a particular
food items within each interface. The experimental
conditions were counterbalanced by means of randomly
assigning the order of the tasks to participants.
All the interfaces had the same number of cafeterias (i.e.
30 cafeterias in each interface) and the same number of
food item in their food menus (i.e., 4 items per each
menu). The names of the cafeterias and foods contained 13 words. The color of the fonts in all interface were dark
blue on light blue background. The background lighting
were set constant in each task, i.e., it was set to “super
bright” as defined in the settings of Windows CE 3.0.
Figure 7. Detailed Menus with Medium Fonts.
Procedure. Participants were positioned at a fixed
distance of approximately 30 cm from the screen of the
Pocket PC. They were then asked to find a particular food
“as quickly and as accurately as possible” in a particular
interface. Each food was unique in all of the interfaces.
The ordering of the restaurants was random in each
interface. The food items that the participants were looking
for was placed at 1/3 or 2/3 of the cafeteria listings in each
interface. The participants were asked to find exact string
matches for food names – for example, the food “pasta”
4
was different than the food “spaghetti” or “pasta amore”.
They were instructed to click on these food items when
they think they found them.
p<.01, and F(2,19)=57.39, p<.01. The three-way
interaction between menu type, font size, and item distance
was also significant, F(2,19)=64.486, p<.01.
To accurately determine font legibility and its associated
effect on reading time, an effective reading score was used.
The score was derived from obtaining the number of
accurately detected food names in the menus of the
restaurants divided by the time taken to read the
passages—which was registered by a stopwatch.
After completing the twelve tasks, participants answered a
perception of readability appeal questionnaire. The
questionnaire consisted of a 9-point Likert scale.
Results
Task completion time. Figure 8 shows that expandable
menu participants took more time completing the search
task than participants who had scrolling menus, at all font
sizes. Expandable menu participants had about the same
mean completion times for medium and large font sizes,
when finding items at both 1/3 down and 2/3 down the
menu. Mean completion times for expandable menu
participants were higher for small font sizes, when finding
items at both 1/3 down and 2/3 down the menu. Scrolling
menu participants had slightly higher times for the small
font size when finding items 2/3 down the menu. The
times for the medium and large font sizes were about the
same. Times were about the same between all font sizes
when finding items 1/3 down the menu.
Figure 8. Search completion time as a function of Menu Type,
Font Size, and Item Distance
A repeated measures analysis was performed. Main effects
for menu type, font size, and distance on measurements of
time were all found to be significant, F(1,22)=259.24,
p<.01, F(2,21)=4.77, p<.05, and F(1,22)=127.92, p<.01,
respectively. There was a significant interaction between
menu type and item distance, F(1,22)= 71.12, p<.01.
Errors. Overall, expanding menu participants made more
errors during the search task than scrolling menu
participants (see Figure 9). Expanding menu participants
made more errors using a smaller font size than larger
ones, when searching for items both 1/3 and 2/3 down the
menu. Scrolling menu participants made virtually no
errors, at any font size, for items both 1/3 and 2/3 down the
menu.
Significant main effects were found for menu type, font
size, and item distance on measurements of error,
F(1,20)=464.72, p<.01, F(2,19)=256.68, p<.01, and
F(1,20)=135.65,
p<.01,
respectively.
Significant
interactions were found between menu type and font size,
between menu type and item distance, and between font
size and distance, F(2,19)=259.81, p<.01, F(1,20)=105.76,
Figure 9. Errors made as a function of Menu Type, Font Size,
and Item Distance
5
Expert Review. A list of the means from the experiment is
compared to “expert review” means. The “expert review”
is intended to represent best possible times for task
completion, for scrolling/expanding, small/medium/large
font, 1/3 down/2/3 down as shown in Table 1. We find
differences between the expert review and subject times
because the experts were familiar with navigation on the
interface, understood the inherent frustrations of the
interface, and what to expect. However, the expert review
data supports the predictive model of search completion
time we propose. It represents search time in a “vacuum”,
under almost “perfect” conditions.
Font
Small
Medium
Large
The results from the expert review best correspond to the
total search time required. In fact, a correlation shows that
the number of screens viewed and total time are highly
correlated (r=.78). Of course, under the real participant
conditions, elements of confusion, frustration, and error
enter, and add to the total search time. Participants using
scrolling menus were much less frustrated than expanding
menu participants, overall. Error had less of an effect on
the overall times for the scrolling menu participants, which
supports our predictive model better than expanded menu
participants. In fact, a strong correlation was found
between task completion time and errors (r=.55), meaning
that as participants spent more time, they made more
errors, which deviates our “perfect” model.
Discussion
Menu Type
Scrolling
Expanding
Expert
s, s, 1/3
s, s, 2/3
s, m, 1/3
s, m, 2/3
s, l, 1/3
s, l, 2/3
e, s, 1/3
e, s, 2/3
e, m, 1/3
e, m, 2/3
e, l, 1/3
e, l, 2/3
18.0
40.0
21.2
31.4
22.0
29.2
69.7
166.6
43.2
136.3
50.7
130.42
10
18
7
14
7
16
34
70
31
62
34
86
Mean
8.0
2.3
S.D.
1.1
1.7
Table 1. Subjective evaluations of menu types.
Search completion time and accuracy (in terms of errors
made) data supports some of the previous research
regarding font size and menu structure. Smaller font sizes
were found to have a dramatic impact on search
completion time and errors made, but only for participants
using expanding menus. Otherwise, smaller fonts had only
a minor affect on completion times and error, if any affect
at all. Overall, expanding menus took significantly longer,
with more errors, to complete a search task than scrolling
menus. It was expected that there would not be much
difference in completion times and errors for the medium
and large font sizes, and that small font size would have
longer completion times. This was expected to be the same
for errors.
It was an initial assumption that items 2/3 down the menu,
and hence, twice as far as the item 1/3 down the menu
would take only twice as long. However, we find that the
longer the distance of the search item (i.e. 2/3 down the
menu), search task completion times were more than twice
as long. The same assumption and finding was found for
errors. Participants reported that searching for items 2/3
down the menu was “exasperating”, “way too difficult”, &
“annoying”. Whereas within a short amount of time
participants would find an item that was 1/3 down the
menu, the frustrations of finding items 2/3 down the menu
became quite a problem, reflected in the completion times
and the number of errors. This impact was even more
evident for the small font sizes.
Participants rated the scrolling menus to be significantly
easier to use than the expanding menus, t(23)=13.897,
p<.01 as shown in Table 3.
Subjects
S.D.
2.5
1.5
1.4
Table 2. Subjective evaluations of font sizes.
Subjective ratings and preferences. Participants rated the
medium and large font sizes more legible over the smaller
font sizes. There was a significant difference between the
small font size and medium font sizes for legibility,
t(23)=6.18, p<.01 as shown in Table 2.
Condition
Mean
4.8
7.4
9.0
Menu
Clicks
4
7
4
8
5
10
20
47
20
51
22
56
Conclusions
The results of this experiment support previous findings
that menu depth should be minimized and menu breadth
should be maximized for the most efficient location of an
item during a search task. Even when our menus were
expanded by one-level, there were significant reductions in
user performance. In addition, expanding menus require
much more cognitive effort to go back and forth between
in a search task, which is confusing and bothersome to
Table 1. Expert Reviews results.
6
users. This is even more of an issue on hand-held devices,
which require a higher level of dexterity to select menus
and buttons.
Kiger, John I. The depth/breadth trade-off in the design of
menu-driven user interfaces, International Journal of ManMachine Studies, 20 (1984), 201-213.
Font sizes on hand-held devices should be not be made too
small. Small font sizes increase the number of errors and
selection time in expanding menus, and have a slight effect
for scrolling menus. Users prefer the medium and larger
font sizes and found them to be more legible. However, it
is not necessary to use the large font sizes on the screen of
a hand-held device. It does not improve performance, may
result in more screen actions by the user, and takes up
valuable screen “real-estate”.
Landauer, T.K. & Nachbar, D.W. Selection from
alphabetic and numeric menu trees using a touch-screen:
Breadth, depth, and width. Proceedings from CHI 1985,
Human Factors in Computing systems, ACM, New York,
April 1985, 73-78.
The design of search menus on hand-held devices, like a
PDA, should have legible font sizes, scrolling menus, and
reduce the number of button and/or menu selections.
Moore, D., & Zabrucky, K. (1995). Adult age differences
in comprehension and memory for computer-displayed and
printed text. Educational Gerontology, 21, 139-150.
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while Reading from Small Displays’ Pennsylvania: CHI
’99 Extended Abstracts
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m
Rahman, Tarjin, and Muter, Paul (1999). Designing an
interface to optimize reading with small display windows.
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Russell, Mark, Hull, John, & Wesley, Rose (Summer
2001). Reading with RSVP on a small screen: does font
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tm
Bernard, Michael, & Mills, Melissa (Summer 2001). So,
what size and type of font should I use on my website?
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Spool, J.M., Scanlon, T., Schroeder, W., Snyder, C., &
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Storrer, Kelsey (Summer 2001). A comparison of popular
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Spool, J.M., Schroeder, W., Scanlon, T., Snyder, C.
(1998). Web sites that work: Designing sites with your
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Hornof, Anthony J. & Kieras, David E.. Cognitive
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8
APPENDIX A: The Consent Form
Subject ID:
INFORMED CONSENT
Please read through the questions below and circle YES or NO for each of them.
1. I have freely volunteered to participate in this experiment.
2. I am willing to be observed during the experiment.
YES
YES
NO
NO
3. I have been informed in advance what my task(s) will be and what procedures will be followed.
YES
NO
4. I have been given the opportunity to ask questions and have had my questions answered to my
satisfaction.
YES
NO
5. I am aware that I have the right to withdraw consent and to discontinue participation at any time,
without prejudice to my future treatment.
YES
NO
6. My signature below may be taken as affirmation of all the above statements; it was given prior to my
participation in this study.
YES
NO
I have read the statement and agree to participate in this experiment.
Signature:……………………………………………………………………….
9
APPENDIX B: Experimental Explanations
Explanations
TASK:
1. Search for the specified menu item on the screen.
2. Search for the EXACT menu item only. For instance, “Cut Ziti” is not the same as “Pasta”…only
“Pasta” is the correct menu item.
3. Once the correct menu item has been identified, click to select.
NOTES:



Scroll through screens by clicking on the scroll bar menu on the right.
Use the “” key at the bottom of the screen to go backwards.
If you think you selected the wrong menu item, you can go back, and then reselect.
PRACTICE:
1. Select Menu #4, find “Caperberries”.
2. Select Menu #2, find “Bufallo Chicken Sandwich”.
10
APPENDIX C: Experiments Outline
Task No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Condition
Non-Detailed Menus vs.
Small Fonts – (1/3 down)
Non-Detailed Menus vs.
Small Fonts – (2/3 down)
Non-Detailed Menus vs.
Medium Fonts – (1/3
down)
Non-Detailed Menus vs.
Medium Fonts – (2/3
down)
Non-Detailed Menus vs.
Large Fonts – (1/3 down)
Non-Detailed Menus vs.
Large Fonts – (2/3 down)
Detailed Menus vs. Small
Fonts – (1/3 down)
Detailed Menus vs. Small
Fonts – (2/3 down)
Detailed Menus vs.
Medium Fonts – (1/3
down)
Detailed Menus vs.
Medium Fonts – (2/3
down)
Detailed Menus vs. Large
Fonts – (1/3 down)
Detailed Menus vs. Large
Fonts – (2/3 down)
Food Searched for
Pasta
Chicken Salad Sub
Tuna Steak
Green Beans
Grilled Sirloin
Greek Salad
Quiche Lorraine
Rotini Pasta
Ginseng Chicken Soup
Barbecued Beef
Gravy Fires
Liver and Onions
11
Search Time
Num. of Errors
APPENDIX D: Pre-Experiment Survey
Pre-Experiment Survey
Please fill out the following questions as accurately as possible. Thanks for your time and participation.
Age ___
Sex
M/F
Major ___________
1.
My computer experience is:
Lo
2.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
I perform the following on a computer:
o
o
o
o
o
3.
Hi
Use a spreadsheet and/or word processing program
Use email
FTP files
Build a personal webpage
Program
Check off small electronic products that you own:
o PDA (e.g. PalmPilot, Pocket PC)
o Pager
o Cellphone
o MP3 player
o Other (please specify):
If you answered yes to owning a PDA, please answer question #4
If not, skip to question #5
4.
How often do you use your PDA (check one)
o Once a week
o Once every few days
o Once a day
o 1 to 3 times a day
o More than 3 times a day
5.
I avoid use a computer/computer technology:
Rarely
6.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Often
Reading small text on computer screens or on PDAs (like Palm Pilots) is:
Hard
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Easy
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APPENDIX E: Post-Experiment Survey
Post-Experiment Survey
1. Rate the differing font sizes for legibility
Small
Medium
Large
Hard to read
Hard to read
Hard to read
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
4
4
4
5
5
5
6
6
6
7
7
7
8
8
8
9
9
9
Easy to read
Easy to read
Easy to read
2. Rate the following searching methods for ease of use:
a.
Scrolling down to search cafeteria menus
Difficult
b.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Easy
6
7
8
9
Easy
Clicking on cafeterias to search menus
Difficult
1
2
3
4
5
3. Comments?
13
APPENDIX F: Interfaces used in the Experiments
Expanding Menus with Small Fonts
Expanding Menus with Large Fonts
Expanding Menus with Medium Fonts
Menu of a restaurant shown when selected
14
Detailed Menus with Small Fonts
Detailed Menus with Large Fonts
Detailed Menus with Medium Fonts
15