Travel distance is not the right metric. The question is how easy is it to acquire the desired menu as a target and select it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F

Travel distance is not the right metric. The question is how easy is it to acquire the desired menu as a target and select it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law Putting the menu bar at the edge of the screen effectively makes it an infinite sized target so it is much easier to target and select. Menus at the top of a window are easily overshot and missed. Travel distance is easily solved by appropriate acceleration in the pointer driver.