Fitts's law: why the menu bar is at the top
3 days ago
- The Mac's menu bar has been fixed at the top since 1983, a design rooted in Fitts's law (1954).
- Fitts's law shows that screen edges make targets infinitely tall, drastically reducing pointing time.
- Screen corners are the easiest pixels to hit; Microsoft and Office 2007 exploited this principle.
- Window menus offer flexibility for multi-app and multi-display setups but lack the edge speed advantage.
- Web apps cannot use screen edges, relying on target size (WCAG 2.2) and zero-distance context menus.