Also knows as: Pie menu
What
Provide available actions in a context-sensitive, circular popup menu made of several pie slices.
Example image
Songza.com - Songza is a music search engine and an internet jukebox. They provide radial menus (a menu made of several pie slices around an inactive center) for selecting from 4 actions that are available for the selected song. Very nice implementation of Radial menu.
Use when
- You want to reduce the complexity of the UI and keep it simple.
- You need to save screen space.
- Menu has 3-8 main level options.
- If more, menu needs to be nested
Why
- Radial menu, which is a context menu, is an effective way to provide available command choices to users. It offers only relevant commands that apply to the current selection
- Minimizes hand movement needed to access commands
- Thus radial menu is fast to select from
- Saves screen space
- Allows the user to focus on what is important in each step of the process
- Towards task oriented UI
- Because the menu is hidden until needed, the design is more simple and clean than when using a menu bar which would be always visible.
How it works
- Show a radial menu on click
- Display commands as slices in a full circle or in an incomplete circle
- Add sub menus to parent menus if needed
- Sub menus don’t need to be in circular
- Menu can be closed by clicking the center
History
This pattern was created by Janne Lammi.
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