Science and Education Publishing Journal of Computer Sciences and Applications 2328-725X 3 4 2015 08 28 A Zigzag Approach to Cascading Menus 94 99 EN Duane Yoder Raihan Uddin Ahmed Munsi Barkatullah A. S. M Mahmudul Hasan School of Science and Technology, Bangladesh Open University, Gazipur, Bangladesh JCSA2015342 10.12691/jcsa-3-4-2 2015 06 15 2015 08 17 2015 08 28 The traditional cascading menu, commonly used in most desktop applications to traverse hierarchical menu systems, can be a time consuming and difficult task. In particular, the wider the submenu the more difficult it becomes to navigate the constraints of a menu item to reach the submenu. As a consequence, the submenu may disappear requiring additional attempts to attain the submenu. When a target menu items resides several layers deep, the required navigation can produce inefficient time and distance management. In this paper, we present an innovative cascading menu called the zigzag menu to address these issues. In the zigzag menu, submenus appear in alternating directions reducing the navigational distance to reach a submenu. A user study confirmed that a zigzag cascading menu effectively reduces the total mouse traversal required and decreases navigational time as familiarity with the system increases.