The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

It shouldn't be the only thought you have. The pluses are that people are used to it; sometimes common usage is better than inventing something unusual. But design should involve thinking about what people are trying to do with your app rather than starting with some design idea.

It is almost always preferable to have all of your options available to the user at all times. However, it's very important to make the distinction between apps and websites when talking about a hamburger menu.

A tab bar is great in an iOS app with a limited scope of functionality. That just doesn't work a sprawling news site covering dozens of topics. A small, product-focused website may even be able to get away with showing all of their navigation options at once. For many sites, however, it's unfortunate, but sometimes you just need a well-organized junk drawer inside a hamburger menu.

Another good observation on this by Luke Wroblewski. http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1945

It should be obvious to most designers that critical features of your product should not be buried or hidden.

I disagree with this article that hamburger menus should be burned to the ground. I think it's useful for tucking away secondary or tertiary functionality.

* Facebook still uses it for accessing your friends list. With smartphones growing in physical size, there is more vertical real-estate to bring the tabnav back.

* Despite it not working for NBC, it seems to be working well for New York Times – and not yellow. And I actually really like NYT's new page layout.

* Google Maps uses it – also not yellow.