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The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

deep.design

81–90 of 192 posts

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#81
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm waiting for 'flat' design to be passé, myself.

I find a lot of web design to be choosing the least bad among a bunch of bad options. I find 'flat' designs to be the least bad in most situations.

Except for the fact that your average person can't tell the difference between a label and a button...

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#82

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 wit…

I keep reading these articles about how awful hamburgers are but so far not a single one addresses menus that have more than 3-5 items. I manage sites that we have kicked around ideas for how to deal with the menu better, but the size of what is in that menu makes all the proposed ideas I've seen not feasible. So I'm right there with you that it is unfortunate, I wish these articles had more in way of solutions than…

I'm gonna sound like an old fart now (mostly because I am) but back in the late 90s we used to have a discipline called Information Architecture that existed to handle exactly this case.

You see, Information Architecture has more to do with capital D Design, not fad, bandwagons and styles. Its about solving this exact problem. I really hope the concept of User Experience dies in a fire so we can go back to real Design.

(User Experience is in my opinion the most nebulous, snake-oil concept I've heard since SEO. Users don't want "an experience". They want to get in get what they want and to get out. The experience should be invisible)

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#83
post #67

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…

> fwiw, I've encountered this quite a bit when helping users switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox or Chrome -- both of which use the stupid hamburger menu -- an users hate it and "being able to find things" is probably the number one reported reason that they go back to Internet Explorer. Even as a routine Firefox user, I never use the "hamburger menu." Instead, to reach functions not visible on my toolbar, I jus…

It's also funny that on the desktop OS designed by Apple, that paragon of modern and superficially minimal design, the menu is always visible (in the menu bar, just for the focused application). Other desktops trying to be as "easy and beautiful" as OS X are doing more to hide the classic menu.

(not an apple fanboy, I promise, I've spent more time with linux overall)

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always an exception, but your app probably isn't one of them.

Out of curiosity I just opened up Facebook on my iPhone (mentioned in the article as a good example). The tab bar has 5 items: News Feed, Requests, Messages, Notifications, and More. I'm in the News Feed 99% of the time. Requests and Notifications are pretty much redundant (since requests become notifications) and could easily be put somewhere else - maybe nav/title bar. Messages is completely useless - just shows me…

Yes, you are an atypical user. You also don't work for Facebook, so you don't have insight into all their priorities.

Facebook is a data-driven company. They've publicly discussed the process that resulted in the current tab bar design. In initial tests, they saw a drop in newsfeed views; they solved it by badging the newsfeed tab when new content arrives.

Requests get their own tab because adding friends to your network is probably a critical priority, and if you really want a user to do something, you give it a top-level navigation item.

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#86
It's very interesting that Apple just adopted a hamburger menu for their apple.com redesign (mobile version). They even told everyone not to use hamburger menus at last year's WWDC! [1]

[1] WWDC 2014 Session 211 Designing Intuitive User Experiences @ 32:00, available here: https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2014/

Addendum: It's a responsive design so you can see this even on a desktop browser just by shrinking the width of the window. The top menubar collapses into a hamburger.

Addendum 2: Illustrated transcript here: http://blog.manbolo.com/2014/06/30/apple-on-hamburger-menus

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Which is why most right click menu options also can be found in another place. The right click menu is a shortcut much like hotkeys. Not essential, but convenient.

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#88

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…

I always thought, hamburger menus are

1. the small screen version of big footer menus which conflict with infinite or long scroll on mobile.

2. The new "site map" menu, flash web sites loved where you dump the navigation of your pages hierarchically.

3. Another "design by committee" tool similar to carousel. As a designer you say "yes" to any navigation request and dump it under the carpet (hamburger)

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

>UI that isn't clear and visible on the screen is unhelpful UI.

It's unintuitive and undiscoverable, but I wouldn't necessarily call it unhelpful...

Re: The Hamburger Menu Doesn't Work

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep reading these articles about how awful hamburgers are but so far not a single one addresses menus that have more than 3-5 items. I manage sites that we have kicked around ideas for how to deal with the menu better, but the size of what is in that menu makes all the proposed ideas I've seen not feasible. So I'm right there with you that it is unfortunate, I wish these articles had more in way of solutions than…

I'm gonna sound like an old fart now (mostly because I am) but back in the late 90s we used to have a discipline called Information Architecture that existed to handle exactly this case. You see, Information Architecture has more to do with capital D Design, not fad, bandwagons and styles. Its about solving this exact problem. I really hope the concept of User Experience dies in a fire so we can go back to real Desig…

You can redef UX to mean something bad, but it's obvious that it is supposed to be UI + how stuff works instead of just the graphical part. Also, X's are sexy. Even that big rocket company decided to just take Space and put an X on it.

SEO might have plenty of snake oil vendors, but it is, unfortunately, a very real and immensely lucrative thing. Search engines drive traffic, which drives money. Search engines are gameable. End of story.

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