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Using hamburger menus? Try sausage links (2019)

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Re: Using hamburger menus? Try sausage links (2019)

#151

Post by Jiro »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #67
ilamont wrote: post #5

When designing medium to large sized menu navigations on the mobile web the default go-to, for some time now, has been hamburger menus. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing Tell it to the many people who have no idea what it means on a mobile device, or increasingly on desktop websites. I've said it many times before, but it's worth repeating: Most people are frustrated by modern information tools. According to a 2015…

> I like the sausage link concept because it clearly labels options with text. 100%. I'm kinda surprised how the 3 lines hamburger menu got so prevalent in the first place, because it always user tests poorly. My guess is that when flat minimalism (my favorite shitty example of this is when Android expected everyone to know what a flat square, circle and triangle are supposed to mean) was the rage, even though user t…

Flat minimalism (compared to using words) is popular because you don't need to have translations of square, circle, and triangle into foreign languages.

(Square, circle, and triangle is also the old Electronic Arts logo, but that's probably not the reason.)

Re: Using hamburger menus? Try sausage links (2019)

#152

Post by at-fates-hands »

ilamont wrote: post #5

When designing medium to large sized menu navigations on the mobile web the default go-to, for some time now, has been hamburger menus. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing Tell it to the many people who have no idea what it means on a mobile device, or increasingly on desktop websites. I've said it many times before, but it's worth repeating: Most people are frustrated by modern information tools. According to a 2015…

I can give you some anecdotal evidence that supports what you're saying.

The very large health care company I work for now is currently redesigning their global nav. We've had no less than 10-15 design working sessions. The same thing that continually comes up is the hamburger menu and how to handle it.

The reason is the company did some pretty extensive research with seniors (a big chunk of our clientele) and found many don't have any idea the hamburger menu is a standard menu now for both desktop and mobile apps. We were told we either have to use it minimally, or not at all. Its been a struggle to find something that everybody can agree on. We have a very small team of 5 people - 2 designers, 2 devs and myself (accessibility) working on this.

I also happen to work in accessibility which many of the apps/sites that use hamburger menus on mobile either create keyboard traps or are totally unusable for screen readers. I'm at least happy our company is trying to move to something different.

Re: Using hamburger menus? Try sausage links (2019)

#153

Post by johannes1234321 »

tshaddox wrote: post #109
jayd16 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Designers like the hamburger because it lets them sweep anything they haven't considered under the rug. They're simple so no one attempts to cram in carousels or videos or what have you, so its the easiest way to add functionality into an app that doesn't have any other thought put into expanding the navigation. So in that sense they're highly productive.

> Designers like the hamburger because it lets them sweep anything they haven't considered under the rug. Aren't you just describing all collapsible menus? I thought the complaint about the hamburger menu was specifically that the icon is unclear. It seems odd to disparage all collapsible menus, particularly on mobile where it's very easy to have a small number of reasonable menu options with no way to possible fit t…

Other collapsible menus need a name of some sort and then can only take things /somewhat/ related to that name. The "Hamburger" can take anything.

Re: Using hamburger menus? Try sausage links (2019)

#154

Post by pmontra »

gary_0 wrote: post #144
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like the sausage link concept because it clearly labels options with text. 100%. I'm kinda surprised how the 3 lines hamburger menu got so prevalent in the first place, because it always user tests poorly. My guess is that when flat minimalism (my favorite shitty example of this is when Android expected everyone to know what a flat square, circle and triangle are supposed to mean) was the rage, even though user t…

> flat minimalism "Modern" design is so opposed to any skeuomorphism that every item on the screen has been totally drained of color and detail. So many UIs are frustrating to use because everything is an abstract monochrome glyph. The extreme of fashion over function we're suffering right now is mind-boggling. In the early 2000's we had books like Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think"; but now, for some reason, decades…

I wonder if those books are ever read nowadays or if the sheer number of projects requiring design skills led to uneducated masses of coders or whatever (me too) doing the job of real educated designers. And fashion, and Bootstrap and all those time saving toolkits.

Re: Using hamburger menus? Try sausage links (2019)

#156

Post by not2b »

layer8 wrote: post #150
seanp2k2 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first time I discovered that "dragging an icon to the trash" was one of the few ways to uninstall an application on Mac, my mind was a bit blown. I was struggling so hard to find an "Add/remove programs" equivalent or an uninstaller.

I believe it’s because that literally just deletes the application file/directory, there’s no hook for application-specific uninstall routines.

Remember when the way to eject a floppy or other removable disk on a Mac was to drag its icon to the trash? That was weird.

Re: Using hamburger menus? Try sausage links (2019)

#157

Post by _Algernon_ »

RugnirViking wrote: post #3

Perhaps a little mean, but its odd that this article about website design is plaintext with maximum contrast and default font, and the viewport to the code pen is so small I can't even see what it's trying to show me without clicking through

Why would that be mean? That's great, readable design...

Re: Using hamburger menus? Try sausage links (2019)

#160

Post by jfoster »

CharlesW wrote: post #21
css wrote: post #15

Horizontal scrolling should be avoided in almost all cases.

On PCs, at least. On mobile, it's very natural.

And one advantage of short or medium length sausage menus on PCs is that they probably don't require any scrolling.

In my opinion, that's what's so nice about them; natural to scroll on mobile, and probably not requiring any scrolling on PCs.

If the items don't entirely fit on most PC screens, then I would take that as a hint that there's too many items for a sausage menu to be a good solution. (subsequently reaching for hamburgers, reducing the number of items, or exploring other options... eg. a sausage menu could also be more than one line?)

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