You are in charge of designing a menu tree for navigating 1,250 books in a digital library. Present an argument of whether the menu should have larger depth (number of levels) or breadth (number of items per level).

What will be an ideal response?

The best way to examine menu depth vs. breadth is to first look at the extremes. How cumbersome would it be to have 1 menu with a long list of 1,250 books on it? How awkward would it be to have 1,250 menus each of 1 level deep? A natural grouping to break the items into “bite sizes” may follow how books are classified now, e.g. Dewey Decimal System, e.g. science books, fiction, non-fiction, etc. Of course, recall if you are building a book web site, you may want to classify the books in a manner that may drive sales, e.g. Top Ten best sellers, regardless of their classification, for business reasons. This is easily discussed in the classroom with menu tree diagrams at a white-board for easy editing. This author often emphasizes there is not a 100% correct answer, but healthy design discussions with usability testing will lead to a preferred solution.