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The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

deep.design

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Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#71

Post by corysama »

My summary. Tell me if I missed something.

Hey, designer. I know screen real estate on mobile is extremely limited. I know it would be really nice to fill the whole screen with content and just have a little, square, "more" icon tucked in the corner. I know you've tried to establish the hamburger icon as the universal "more" icon.

Too bad. Users aren't catching on as quickly as you'd like. They don't notice, understand or utilize the icon. Even if they do notice and understand, an ambiguous "more" is dramatically less engaging than explicitly showing what they can get. A "more" icon is asking them to expend effort up front exploring your interface with no clear reward in sight. So, they don't bother. Like, a measurable 50+% drop in engagement don't bother.

So, stick to tab bars as much as you can. It seems like a waste of screen space. But, the results still seem worth the cost.

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#72

Post by weinzierl »

I researched this topic a few days ago and beside the (excellent) article from James Archer, I found the following links worth reading:

   Why and How to Avoid Hamburger Menus[1]
   Hamburgers & Basements[2]
   An Update on the Hamburger Menu[3]
   The Hamburger is Bad for You[4]
A bit off-topic, but the Hamburger icon was actually invented at Xerox PARC[5].

[1] https://lmjabreu.com/post/why-and-how-to-avoid-hamburger-men...

[2] http://jxnblk.tumblr.com/post/36218805036/hamburgers-basemen...

[3] http://jxnblk.tumblr.com/post/82486816704/an-update-on-the-h...

[4] http://mor10.com/hamburger-bad/

[5] http://gizmodo.com/who-designed-the-iconic-hamburger-icon-15...

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#73

Post by TheTravCav »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #56
dperfect wrote: post #36

Before hamburger menus became popular, weren't people complaining about the exact opposite problem? That is, if you break out the menu items into more prominent interface elements (e.g., tab bar items), then you're at risk of cluttering your visual design with less-common functions. As in all things design, I suppose a balance needs to be found, but I personally don't find anything wrong with a hamburger menu per se.…

> I personally don't find anything wrong with a hamburger menu per se. The trouble, which the article describes with some case studies on engagement before and after hamburger menu implementations, is that people who are not you are confused by it and don't understand it to be a menu. fwiw, I've encountered this quite a bit when helping users switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox or Chrome -- both of which use the…

>people who are not you are confused by it and don't understand it

This is the history of computers and users. So many technologies that seem completely intuitive now started out just like this. being confused by it and don't understand it is only a problem if stays that way like shortcut key combos. Hamburger menus are like "right click". it's not that bad and when people have seen it a few times it won't be some confusing.

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#74

Post by thaumaturgy »

TheTravCav wrote: post #73
thaumaturgy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally don't find anything wrong with a hamburger menu per se. The trouble, which the article describes with some case studies on engagement before and after hamburger menu implementations, is that people who are not you are confused by it and don't understand it to be a menu. fwiw, I've encountered this quite a bit when helping users switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox or Chrome -- both of which use the…

>people who are not you are confused by it and don't understand it This is the history of computers and users. So many technologies that seem completely intuitive now started out just like this. being confused by it and don't understand it is only a problem if stays that way like shortcut key combos. Hamburger menus are like "right click". it's not that bad and when people have seen it a few times it won't be some co…

The trouble is that so many software developers in particular use this argument to justify every single silly notion they come up with. "Users just hate change, they'll get used to it and then they'll love it" is not a good engine for UI design.

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#75

Post by DanSmooth »

I might be missing something but the first Facebook example used in the article seems wrongly applied to this problem. They just transferred the menu bar to the bottom. All the icons, which were at the top, are now just located at the bottom. They are now easier to see - the text doesn't hurt also, and probably easier to use (no conflict with the phones top-bar), which could be the explanation for the observed results. The only difference I can see is the switch of the hamburger at the top with a search icon.

Nobody ever asked me - for obvious reasons, because I might be blind - but I'm partial to an icon where you have a + sign ("additional" items) on top a V ("directional clue"; could be pointed in other directions for a pull-up menu for example) to form some sort of arrow.

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#76

Post by marcosdumay »

dperfect wrote: post #36

Before hamburger menus became popular, weren't people complaining about the exact opposite problem? That is, if you break out the menu items into more prominent interface elements (e.g., tab bar items), then you're at risk of cluttering your visual design with less-common functions. As in all things design, I suppose a balance needs to be found, but I personally don't find anything wrong with a hamburger menu per se.…

Before the hamburger menu, people were complaining about the MS Office style ribbon. Design fads are an endless cycle of "ops, just froze my thumb!" -> "wait, I'll just put your hand on fire to solve that" -> "ops, my hand is on fire!" -> "wait let me freeze your arm", and so on.

Just like the ribbon, there are plenty of things wrong with the hamburger. One of them is that people can not even find it on a large screen. Both can be used well (look at AutoCad 2010 for a good example of ribbon; there are plenty of good examples of the hamburger on phone apps), and both are widely abused. But I'll just disagree that almost everything needs it. Almost nothing on a desktop of tablet needs it, it's a phone thing.

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#77

Post by leepowers »

Or in short: Having a single, minimalistic hamburger icon doesn't convey enough information to be useful. It may be possible to improve engagement metrics by using informational icons and titles. None of these statements are particularly controversial.

So, should we web developers start ripping out hamburger icons on our sites. NO. Avoid groupthink. Implement and test layouts that produce measurable results. Removing hamburger icons is no panacea. What are the users doing? What does the data say? If cargo cult thinking produced an over-reliance on a single navigation icon, we aren't going to solve anything by snapping back in the other direction.

Also, there's a difference between a hamburger icon and a drawer menu. On mobile devices a drawer menu is still a fantastic way to reveal additional navigation options without a page reload over a (potentially) slow network connection. Stuffing a navigation list into drawer menu is an easy solution. But it may produce poor results.

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#78

Post by ocdtrekkie »

TheTravCav wrote: post #73
thaumaturgy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally don't find anything wrong with a hamburger menu per se. The trouble, which the article describes with some case studies on engagement before and after hamburger menu implementations, is that people who are not you are confused by it and don't understand it to be a menu. fwiw, I've encountered this quite a bit when helping users switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox or Chrome -- both of which use the…

>people who are not you are confused by it and don't understand it This is the history of computers and users. So many technologies that seem completely intuitive now started out just like this. being confused by it and don't understand it is only a problem if stays that way like shortcut key combos. Hamburger menus are like "right click". it's not that bad and when people have seen it a few times it won't be some co…

People still don't understand right click. Hate to break this to you. UI that isn't clear and visible on the screen is unhelpful UI.

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#79

Post by bcheung »

dperfect wrote: post #36

Before hamburger menus became popular, weren't people complaining about the exact opposite problem? That is, if you break out the menu items into more prominent interface elements (e.g., tab bar items), then you're at risk of cluttering your visual design with less-common functions. As in all things design, I suppose a balance needs to be found, but I personally don't find anything wrong with a hamburger menu per se.…

It's a common pattern that is used everywhere. If we were to zero base think, then yeah, it's absolutely horrible. But since it is already established people look for it. Better to go with an established pattern than reinvent your own. That being said, the article advocates tab bars and I think that is fine if you have the screen real estate. Often times you don't though.

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#80

Post by potatolicious »

corysama wrote: post #71

My summary. Tell me if I missed something. Hey, designer. I know screen real estate on mobile is extremely limited. I know it would be really nice to fill the whole screen with content and just have a little, square, "more" icon tucked in the corner. I know you've tried to establish the hamburger icon as the universal "more" icon. Too bad. Users aren't catching on as quickly as you'd like. They don't notice, understa…

Mmm, close, I would nitpick a few points:

- Most users do understand the hamburger icon, so they notice and understand it, but they definitely don't utilize it.

- It's not really about engagement. Users generally don't go about thinking to themselves "boy that icon looks so engaging and just begs for a click!"

- It's all about workflows and hints built into these workflows.

At any moment on your website/app your users are trying to accomplish something. UI nudges and pulls them in the correct direction towards their destination. At every step the user is evaluating the screen to determine the thing most relevant to moving closer to their goal.

A hamburger button never - and I mean never - tells the user "click me and you'll be closer to your goal!". A hamburger button is utterly neutral in every single way, even to the trained user who knows what a hamburger button does.

- When evaluating the screen to determine what they should do next, almost everything feels more relevant than the hamburger button.

It's not that people don't want to click on the hamburger button, it's that in any particular circumstance some other UI element will feel more relevant (even if it isn't actually true).

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