I didn’t like the UX either but love everything else about it.

I put together and built a Raycast extension for Anki for this reason: https://www.raycast.com/anton-suprun/anki

Using Raycast keyboard friendly UI makes Anki a lot more fun and friction-less.

If you use a Mac - give it a go.

Apologies if some features are missing - I’ve been procrastinating on patching it with some requested features