For long lists without an obvious logical arrangement alphabetical order allows one to take advantage of Hick's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hick's_law), but if the list is relatively short and there is a logical order to the items then alphabetizing is probably not the way to go.
In most cases alphabetizing doesn't work well in menus. As other's have mentioned, it's about equivalent to putting items in a random order. Menus are groupings. As a result they will nearly always contain items that have some logical relationship: undo, redo - print, preview - cut, copy, paste - new, open, close - save, save as, save all... The groups may or may not workout in alphabetical order. And what if the UI is translated into another language? The alphabetized menus will change - probably a bad idea. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38149 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
