4 ms·

The problem with the hamburger menu isn't that people don't know what it means - it's been around long enough that most users know what it means. The problem w

The problem with the hamburger menu isn't that people don't know what it means - it's been around long enough that most users know what it means. The problem with the hamburger menu is that nobody taps on it. Novices and expert users alike, tap rates for the hamburger menus is universally dismal no matter which app you're looking at. Which is to say, no matter how well-trained and knowledgeable your userbase is, if you want something to be clicked, do not put it behind a hamburger menu. We can talk nice about the menu all day and call it "plucky" all we want, but the facts on the grounds is that the hamburger menu almost never gets tapped, and anything that is accessed via the hamburger menu is destined for the graveyard of little to no usage. We can call the hamburger menu an emergent experiment, but it's been, what, 3-4 years since its first appearance? At this point I think it's safe to call the experiment a failure.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> The problem with the hamburger menu is that nobody taps on it. Novices and expert users alike, tap rates for the hamburger menus is universally dismal no matter which app you're looking at. Why is that a problem? Hamburger menus seem to be a place for stashing things you don't expect people to need in most uses of an application, but which need to be around for the occasional need. And that's a fairly well-established UI pattern, so it should have a low tap rate. Not everything that needs to be accessible in the UI needs to be accessed frequently.
- potatolicious 11y ago
  Because the overwhelming observed pattern for users is that they want something, and they will tap on the thing on the screen that appears most likely to lead towards the goal. Roughly speaking, users will look at all possible touches on the screen and score them based on relevance, and tap the highest scoring element. The typical use of a mobile app is effective a pathfinding problem. The problem is that because of the inherent meaninglessness of the hamburger button, the hamburger button always scores near zero. Which also means that users will actually tap on things that lead them away from what they want before they touch the hamburger button. A common pattern you will see when a user is looking for a less-used function of the app is that they will make several mis-touches first, tapping on things that do not lead to their goal, before backing up and trying the hamburger button. Effectively hamburger buttons will send your users on wild goose chases through your app because it is a UI of last resort. Even when users are looking for obscure/miscellaneous functions of your software, they will look practically everywhere else first before looking under the hamburger button. There are better ways to point users towards less-used functions of the app that
- CM30 11y ago
  What about the thousands of sites and apps that store the entire navigation menu behind a hamburger menu button? If no one clicks on it, that's kind of an issue, since people won't leave the site/app front page.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> The problem with the hamburger menu is that nobody taps on it. Novices and expert users alike, tap rates for the hamburger menus is universally dismal no matter which app you're looking at. Why is that a problem? Hamburger menus seem to be a place for stashing things you don't expect people to need in most uses of an application, but which need to be around for the occasional need. And that's a fairly well-established UI pattern, so it should have a low tap rate. Not everything that needs to be accessible in the UI needs to be accessed frequently.

potatolicious 11y ago
Because the overwhelming observed pattern for users is that they want something, and they will tap on the thing on the screen that appears most likely to lead towards the goal. Roughly speaking, users will look at all possible touches on the screen and score them based on relevance, and tap the highest scoring element. The typical use of a mobile app is effective a pathfinding problem. The problem is that because of the inherent meaninglessness of the hamburger button, the hamburger button always scores near zero. Which also means that users will actually tap on things that lead them away from what they want before they touch the hamburger button. A common pattern you will see when a user is looking for a less-used function of the app is that they will make several mis-touches first, tapping on things that do not lead to their goal, before backing up and trying the hamburger button. Effectively hamburger buttons will send your users on wild goose chases through your app because it is a UI of last resort. Even when users are looking for obscure/miscellaneous functions of your software, they will look practically everywhere else first before looking under the hamburger button. There are better ways to point users towards less-used functions of the app that
CM30 11y ago
What about the thousands of sites and apps that store the entire navigation menu behind a hamburger menu button? If no one clicks on it, that's kind of an issue, since people won't leave the site/app front page.