Thought experiments aren't as reliable as controlled experiments for objectively measuring the speed and efficacy of user interfaces, and interviewing actual users for discovering subjective preferences.
We performed a controlled experiment in 1988 that compared eight item pie menus to linear menus, which showed that pie menus were significantly faster and had lower error rates than linear menus.
Users didn't have a problem with them in 1988, and probably won't now: "The most mouse naive users, while finding linear menus easier, tended to be better at pie menus and commented that with practice, they would probably be superior and in fact prefer the pie menus because of their speed and minimization of hand movement with the mouse. Not surprisingly, therefore, most of those preferring linear menus did not have a strong preference on the scaled subjective questionnaire."
An Empirical Comparison of Pie vs. Linear Menus
Jack Callahan, Don Hopkins, Mark Weiser () and Ben Shneiderman.
Computer Science Department University of Maryland College Park, Maryland 20742
We performed a controlled experiment in 1988 that compared eight item pie menus to linear menus, which showed that pie menus were significantly faster and had lower error rates than linear menus.
Users didn't have a problem with them in 1988, and probably won't now: "The most mouse naive users, while finding linear menus easier, tended to be better at pie menus and commented that with practice, they would probably be superior and in fact prefer the pie menus because of their speed and minimization of hand movement with the mouse. Not surprisingly, therefore, most of those preferring linear menus did not have a strong preference on the scaled subjective questionnaire."
An Empirical Comparison of Pie vs. Linear Menus
Jack Callahan, Don Hopkins, Mark Weiser () and Ben Shneiderman.
Computer Science Department University of Maryland College Park, Maryland 20742
() Computer Science Laboratory, Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, Calif. 94303.
Presented at ACM CHI'88 Conference, Washington DC, 1988.
http://www.donhopkins.com/drupal/node/100
The Design and Implementation of Pie Menus -- Dr. Dobb's Journal, Dec. 1991
There're Fast, Easy, and Self-Revealing.
Copyright (C) 1991 by Don Hopkins.
Originally published in Dr. Dobb's Journal, Dec. 1991, lead cover story, user interface issue.
http://www.donhopkins.com/drupal/node/98