5 ms·

Isn't the issue with pie menus that they require a set of icons that require no further explanation to all users? Linear menus may be slower but have better usa

by shkkmo 9y ago

Isn't the issue with pie menus that they require a set of icons that require no further explanation to all users? Linear menus may be slower but have better usability for new or infrequent users because they allow text descriptions and are easier to scan quickly.

dsr_ 9y ago
Well, if you already know the icons... For example, Android tablets have three or four icons at the bottom, by default. (Minor wars have broken out over the order in which they are displayed.) Back, Home, Menu, Recents. For a few years now I've been installing LMT https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1330150 https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1330150 on all my Android devices. LMT implements a radial menu that your finger can slide in from any (selectable) side of the device screen. And, of course, you can customize how many slices, what each slice does, color, translucency, highlight color, and a myriad of other small choices which can make the thing feel exactly right for you. It frequently confuses other people, and why not? It's not like I'm going to let other people use my phone.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  Which makes radial menus a good customizable feature but not a great default feature unless you are in a context where you expect users to achieve mastery with your UI (such as in a video game).
  - dsr_ 9y ago
    People master their phones pretty quickly. If the setup feature on the iPhone 11 started by teaching you how to use a radial or pie menu system, people would swear it was the best thing Apple ever invented, that it's completely intuitive and toddlers can learn it. (Part of this is because they say that about every Apple feature except fragile keyboards.)
    - toast0 9y ago
      > (Part of this is because they say that about every Apple feature except fragile keyboards.) I'm pretty sure they say that about the keyboards too -- i've seen comments like "the j and k keys are stuck, but i love it so much"
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  I knew someone who enjoyed configuring the X11 "piewm" window manager so it didn't have any frames or borders at all, and popped up pie menus with one of the modifier keys. They enjoyed watching other people suffer when trying to mess around with their computer! https://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=piewm https://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=piewm
DonHopkins 9y ago
The don't require icons, but icons certainly fit a lot better. But that's true for anything, including toolbars and linear menus. Various layout strategies have been developed for justifying text around the pie menu, some are better than others. Rotating text is usually pretty terrible and hard to read because you have to turn your head and it's jaggy, but now days it's not quite as jaggy with anti-aliasing as PostScript graphics on a bitmap screen was. The simplest thing to do is to define an inner label radius, and justify against it the center bottom of the top item (if there is one), the center top of the bottom item (if there is one), the left middle of all right items, the right middle of all the left items. Here's a pie menu with iconic symbols justified that way, and a half pie menu with labels justified that way (just no bottom label since it has an even number of slices, and is half size): https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/600/1*bK8djI5foFRHOjzCQcKy1A.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/600/1*bK8djI5foFRHOjzCQc... Here's an "eight days a week" menu that shows longer weekday name labels, including ones at the top and bottom -- it looks fine for wide text labels: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*4KdSEWpcoP4TM5Hy.gif https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*4KdSEWpcoP4TM5Hy.g... And here's a window management menu, that shows a menu with labels, and a grab submenu (for immediately grabbing a corner or edge) with icons. https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*KkzlkTw5YG8zWJBu.gif https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*KkzlkTw5YG8zWJBu.g... The top and bottom icons look a little hinkey since their center tops and bottoms are pinned against the inside label radius, so they're pushed out a bit too much. (It also may have to do with the icon metrics). To handle that, pie menus with automatic layout should let you tweak each item's exact position with a relative dx, dy offset (I guess I never got around to fixing that grab menu). Here's a ringed menu with a shitload of very short single character labels, justified that way. Don't try this at home, kids! I'm not saying it's a good design, but I just had to try to see and feel how it worked. Somebody with better graphical design sense than I could do a lot better! https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*e6Vki12PZpXhNUCF.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*e6Vki12PZpXhNUCF.p... https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*Bp6mF8xuFoEXccz6.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*Bp6mF8xuFoEXccz6.p... https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*nS1dBKIaUJWAYGRK.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*nS1dBKIaUJWAYGRK.p... Another strategy is to use icons, but show a menu description when no item is selected, and the label of the selected item somewhere, like this: SimCity Tools menu, nothing selected: "Select a SimCity editing tool, or the zone or build submenu." https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*M4lyjaseU39Tvl9k.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*M4lyjaseU39Tvl9k.p... SimCity Tools menu, bulldozer selected: "Bulldozer editing tool." https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*ugqLx0GcRlCt7e_R.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*ugqLx0GcRlCt7e_R.p... Some of these images were from "OLPC Sugar Pie Menu Discussion" where there's lots more discussion about graphical design, layout, and tracking: https://medium.com/@donhopkins/olpc-sugar-pie-menu-discussion-738577e54516 https://medium.com/@donhopkins/olpc-sugar-pie-menu-discussio... The OLPC can get away with using a lot of nice big bold square icons, because it's designed for kids who may not be able to read. But I think it's important to support not just text labels, but also full text descriptions. Another feature all kinds of menus should really have, is a way for users to discover why the fuck a menu item is disabled, and what they can do to enable it. It's so terribly frustrating that disabled items just ignore you and won't even let you select them, but there they are staring at you, not giving you any help, just watching you suffer, knowing all along what's wrong and why they're disabled, just not allowed to tell you! At least let users point at menu items that aren't enabled, and tell them why they're not enabled in the help text at the bottom of the menu, and even provide some context sensitive hints describing what you have to do to enable the item, if not offering to do it for you.

by shkkmo 9y ago

dsr_ 9y ago

Well, if you already know the icons... For example, Android tablets have three or four icons at the bottom, by default. (Minor wars have broken out over the order in which they are displayed.) Back, Home, Menu, Recents. For a few years now I've been installing LMT https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1330150 https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1330150 on all my Android devices. LMT implements a radial menu that your finger can slide in from any (selectable) side of the device screen. And, of course, you can customize how many slices, what each slice does, color, translucency, highlight color, and a myriad of other small choices which can make the thing feel exactly right for you. It frequently confuses other people, and why not? It's not like I'm going to let other people use my phone.

shkkmo 9y ago
Which makes radial menus a good customizable feature but not a great default feature unless you are in a context where you expect users to achieve mastery with your UI (such as in a video game).
- dsr_ 9y ago
  People master their phones pretty quickly. If the setup feature on the iPhone 11 started by teaching you how to use a radial or pie menu system, people would swear it was the best thing Apple ever invented, that it's completely intuitive and toddlers can learn it. (Part of this is because they say that about every Apple feature except fragile keyboards.)
  - toast0 9y ago
    > (Part of this is because they say that about every Apple feature except fragile keyboards.) I'm pretty sure they say that about the keyboards too -- i've seen comments like "the j and k keys are stuck, but i love it so much"
DonHopkins 9y ago
I knew someone who enjoyed configuring the X11 "piewm" window manager so it didn't have any frames or borders at all, and popped up pie menus with one of the modifier keys. They enjoyed watching other people suffer when trying to mess around with their computer! https://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=piewm https://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=piewm

DonHopkins 9y ago

The don't require icons, but icons certainly fit a lot better. But that's true for anything, including toolbars and linear menus. Various layout strategies have been developed for justifying text around the pie menu, some are better than others. Rotating text is usually pretty terrible and hard to read because you have to turn your head and it's jaggy, but now days it's not quite as jaggy with anti-aliasing as PostScript graphics on a bitmap screen was. The simplest thing to do is to define an inner label radius, and justify against it the center bottom of the top item (if there is one), the center top of the bottom item (if there is one), the left middle of all right items, the right middle of all the left items. Here's a pie menu with iconic symbols justified that way, and a half pie menu with labels justified that way (just no bottom label since it has an even number of slices, and is half size): https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/600/1*bK8djI5foFRHOjzCQcKy1A.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/600/1*bK8djI5foFRHOjzCQc... Here's an "eight days a week" menu that shows longer weekday name labels, including ones at the top and bottom -- it looks fine for wide text labels: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*4KdSEWpcoP4TM5Hy.gif https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*4KdSEWpcoP4TM5Hy.g... And here's a window management menu, that shows a menu with labels, and a grab submenu (for immediately grabbing a corner or edge) with icons. https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*KkzlkTw5YG8zWJBu.gif https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*KkzlkTw5YG8zWJBu.g... The top and bottom icons look a little hinkey since their center tops and bottoms are pinned against the inside label radius, so they're pushed out a bit too much. (It also may have to do with the icon metrics). To handle that, pie menus with automatic layout should let you tweak each item's exact position with a relative dx, dy offset (I guess I never got around to fixing that grab menu). Here's a ringed menu with a shitload of very short single character labels, justified that way. Don't try this at home, kids! I'm not saying it's a good design, but I just had to try to see and feel how it worked. Somebody with better graphical design sense than I could do a lot better! https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*e6Vki12PZpXhNUCF.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*e6Vki12PZpXhNUCF.p... https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*Bp6mF8xuFoEXccz6.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*Bp6mF8xuFoEXccz6.p... https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*nS1dBKIaUJWAYGRK.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/300/0*nS1dBKIaUJWAYGRK.p... Another strategy is to use icons, but show a menu description when no item is selected, and the label of the selected item somewhere, like this: SimCity Tools menu, nothing selected: "Select a SimCity editing tool, or the zone or build submenu." https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*M4lyjaseU39Tvl9k.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*M4lyjaseU39Tvl9k.p... SimCity Tools menu, bulldozer selected: "Bulldozer editing tool." https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*ugqLx0GcRlCt7e_R.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/450/0*ugqLx0GcRlCt7e_R.p... Some of these images were from "OLPC Sugar Pie Menu Discussion" where there's lots more discussion about graphical design, layout, and tracking: https://medium.com/@donhopkins/olpc-sugar-pie-menu-discussion-738577e54516 https://medium.com/@donhopkins/olpc-sugar-pie-menu-discussio... The OLPC can get away with using a lot of nice big bold square icons, because it's designed for kids who may not be able to read. But I think it's important to support not just text labels, but also full text descriptions. Another feature all kinds of menus should really have, is a way for users to discover why the fuck a menu item is disabled, and what they can do to enable it. It's so terribly frustrating that disabled items just ignore you and won't even let you select them, but there they are staring at you, not giving you any help, just watching you suffer, knowing all along what's wrong and why they're disabled, just not allowed to tell you! At least let users point at menu items that aren't enabled, and tell them why they're not enabled in the help text at the bottom of the menu, and even provide some context sensitive hints describing what you have to do to enable the item, if not offering to do it for you.