I remember in the late 90s when there were so many alternative interfaces for PCs. It was a great time for exploration on what could be done.
Kando is very pretty, and it can be fun to use an interface like this, but in terms of practicality, text inputs are better.
For example, on my desktop, there's an icon on my taskbar for Firefox, but most of the time, I get my screen to the search bar and type "F" and my system knows I probably want Firefox. Done.
There's a game I play, Astroneer, and it uses a pie interface. I often wish I could just type in what I want. It'd be faster.
I want to love this, but I can type on a keyboard so much faster, and use up so much less cognitive energy doing so than switching my hand to the mouse, pulling up a menu, reading the symbols (even if I have their location memorized) and pulling my wrist/arm in the right direction.
If you have both hands at your keyboard, that's 100% true. However, it really works well with workflows which rely on mouse, stylus, touch, or controller input.
Especially when used for "creative" or "artistic" tasks (e.g. painting, video editing, 3D modelling, etc.) pie menus can really have a benefit because you have your hand at the stylus or at the mouse most of the time anyways.
Kando looks incredible - congrats! And I can see how it works well for the use cases you described. Maybe it would be possible to add keyboard support? One could use left and right arrow keys to highlight an item and the up arrow key to select it.
Radial menus never worked for me with a mouse pointer, even though I like(d) the idea in theory. It’s somehow easier to reliably hit traditional rectangular menu items arranged linearly, then some wedge in an angle.
I agree, but I also really like the pie menus. Personally, I'd like the ability to simply write to match, but otherwise working as demonstrated. E.g. like the Windows search works when you've hidden the search bar. I'd prefer both, in other words.
ideally you have a button on your mouse to summon this, and use it when you are already using your mouse, and summon a different interface for typing from your keyboard, when your hands are there
Kando is very pretty, and it can be fun to use an interface like this, but in terms of practicality, text inputs are better.
For example, on my desktop, there's an icon on my taskbar for Firefox, but most of the time, I get my screen to the search bar and type "F" and my system knows I probably want Firefox. Done.
There's a game I play, Astroneer, and it uses a pie interface. I often wish I could just type in what I want. It'd be faster.
I want to love this, but I can type on a keyboard so much faster, and use up so much less cognitive energy doing so than switching my hand to the mouse, pulling up a menu, reading the symbols (even if I have their location memorized) and pulling my wrist/arm in the right direction.