Menu Design: Theory and Practice - PIE Menus

As a graduate student, I worked with my advisor, Kent Norman,
studying menu design. Recently, I found that he wrote an article
for the special 50th Anniversary Issue of
The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
(Volume 50, Number 3, June 2008).

Better Design of Menu Selection Systems Through Cognitive Psychology and Human Factors, pp. 556-559(4)

In the abstract, he concluded:

"that cognitive psychology has contributed substantially to the design of better menu selection systems... It is imperative that designers continue to apply these findings to interfaces that they develop and that researchers continue to study the characteristics and efficacy of innovative menu designs as they appear"

Unfortunately, it is not clear to me that designers are applying what has been learned from academic research. In a recent listserve thread by IxDA (Interaction Design Association), only a couple of designers were aware of the origins of the original pie menu.

Callahan, J., Hopkins, D., Weiser, M., & Shneiderman, B. (1993). An em-
pirical comparison of pie vs. linear menus. In B. Shneiderman (Ed.),
Sparks of innovation in human-computer interaction (pp. 79–88).
Norwood, NJ: Ablex

Pie menus reduced the time to make a selection by having the distance (mouse movement) to each item selection the same (unlike linear menus). This advantage can be predicted by the GOMS theory (Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection Rules).