7 ms·

> Whenever I see a hamburger menu I silently think "Here someone has given up" Can you explain what you don’t like about hamburger menus?

by nojs 5y ago

toxik 5y ago
It is the “etc” of UI design. It’s a cop out most of the time.
happymellon 5y ago
Is a dumpster of features, you have no idea what you'll find in there. Has someone hidden the zoom buttons in there? How about print? Perhaps that's also where save is, or tab colour? Most things in the hamburger menu are completely unrelated but exist for the removal of context. Button outlines so you have no idea what you can and cannot click on as well, which is mentioned in the fine article, are all modern design patterns. Looks over functionality. Hamburger menu is just peak modern menus. Lazy.
- rezonant 5y ago
  So on desktop applications, I assume you prefer all your functions to be on toolbars, and you have similar disdain whenever you encounter a File menu? I guess if there's a lot of functions, you probably need some tabs on your toolbar- so the Office Ribbon interface is idyllic I assume?
  - eqvinox 5y ago
    The difference between a file menu and an hamburger icon is that the file menu hides file operations while the hamburger icon hides… anything. something. dead bodies.
    - rezonant 5y ago
      Almost every desktop application has a File menu whether or not it deals with files. The File menu has an "Exit" item. Does it Exit the File? OBS has "Always on Top" as an option within "File". Or we can look at it from the other side. "Where do I find the settings for this app?". Is it in File, Edit, View, Tools or Help. The answer depends on the app. Menus can be well organized or poorly organized but I don't think we should be banishing menus. The hamburger icon is just an iconic, space efficient way to say "menu"
      - heisenzombie 5y ago
        There are guidelines for what should be in menu bars, what order the items should be in, and how they should behave for different sorts of application. For example, on Mac: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/menus/menu-bar-menus/ https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline... And on Windows: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/cmd-menus https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/cmd-m... > "Where do I find the settings for this app?". Is it in File, Edit, View, Tools or Help? On Mac, it should be in the "App" menu and called "Preferences...", it should be the first item in the menu, except if you have an "About YourAppName" item which always goes at the top with a seperator underneath. On Windows, it should be in the "Tools" menu, and called "Options...". 4 On Linux, it should be under the "Edit" menu, and called "Preferences". If it's not, then the app (in my opinion) is broken. Of course, many apps are lazily ported across platforms or "hamburgerized". The Windows situation is obviously also more messy because of the newer "ribbon" standards complicating things a bit, but there are right answers. (edit: fixed links)
        rezonant 5y ago
        Of course there are ancient, rarely updated guidelines that almost all applications ignore. Microsoft indeed has that great guide, and yet their own applications implement it inconsistently, and often incorrectly according to the guidelines. Apple is a tad bit better, but third party apps rarely get it right. The best thing Apple has going for it is specifically on the question of where Settings is: there is a dedicated app menu, so it just makes logical sense to put Settings there. Or was it Preferences? Options. > On Linux, it should be under the "Edit" menu, and called "Preferences". This one is a stretch, there are no such consistent and agreed-upon guidelines. My point here is that just because things can be abused (or even, in the case of desktop applications, are almost _always_ abused), doesn't mean the general concept is useless or should be removed from applications. I would recommend instead of trying to cram a hundred possible actions into a tiny icon bar at the bottom of your iPhone, or removing 97 of those actions from the app itself and leaving just the most basic three down there, to maybe consider building a sensible and well-arranged menu layout _if and when_ you need more than those three that you can fit at the bottom.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - samtheDamned 5y ago
    The ribbon menu was actually a step in the right direction for desktop only UI paradigm
- eloisius 5y ago
  Yep. It's the miscellaneous everything bucket. It also seems to only be motivated by either scarce screen real estate (it first showed up in mobile interfaces), or graphic designers who think everything is "clutter" and by sweeping it away into the hamburger menu they can have their beautiful screenshot-worthy interface. I have a 27" monitor, but tons of websites and even Firefox itself hide half the functionality behind a hamburger.
  - prox 5y ago
    Originally the top menu was to have a way to access to all functions. Many still do (say LibreOffice) The hamburger is kind of a weird breed of design signaling because of it. In some desktop apps it still is the original top menu, but not always. On websites and apps it can vary tremendously. However, a top menu is not an expert level mode, it’s a beginners / proficient level mode. Expert level means using keyboard shortcuts. Context driven display and modes are far more valuable when meeting spacial constraints. But that can be hard when you are dealing with many form factors and so the quick fix is the hamburger.
    - hulitu 5y ago
      > Expert level means using keyboard shortcuts. This is true when you use only an editor and a debugger. When you need to use 10 programs each with its own keyboard shorcuts (which, BTW you need to search in internet which they are because the company doing the software did not bother to make them accessible in a help menu) you're gonna have a hard time. In the (1985) past you had for such things a holder attached to your keyboard where you had a listing of those keyboard shortcuts. Now the world has evolved and we have ... tada... the hamburger menu. P.S. I would not feel good as a developer to know that someone , somewhere curses me and my family constantly for the work i done.
      - microtonal 5y ago
        which, BTW you need to search in internet which they are because the company doing the software did not bother to make them accessible in a help menu At least on macOS and Windows the shortcuts are shown in the (traditional) menu bar. With GNOME's use of hamburgers, it's anyone's guess. As someone who likes shortcuts, I found it very hard to figure out shortcuts in GNOME apps that have a lot of functionality hidden away. (Aside from keyboard shortcuts not being very consistent between apps on Linux.)
- nojs 5y ago
  I see what you mean. Brave on desktop comes to mind as an offender.
- ratww 5y ago
  > Is a dumpster of features, you have no idea what you'll find in there. I feel the same way about notifications. Both native notifications and notifications via e-mail. It is no longer easy to find out if something changed or happened in most websites/applications. You must be bombarded with notifications all the time, and god forbid you take an extended break or something goes into your spam folder, because if you snooze you lose. JIRA for me is the worst in this regard.
  - gigaflop 5y ago
    One of the first things I do with a fresh work inbox is set rules to push things into non-default folders. And then, I proceed to never look at them unless I'm digging for something. 61 unread notifications from Az Devops? Nah, I don't need to read those. I was watching that build in the background, I know it failed. Mobile notifications should offer more filtering options at the system level. Why do I need to trust an app developer to respect my notification preferences? Why should I rely on the developer to build granularity into their push notification frequency? It all gets simpler when you can filter at the 'inbox'.
- SomeInterwebDev 5y ago
  Declaring a tool good or bad because it's abused doesn't make sense.
eitland 5y ago
It is just a menu. But instead of being an ordinary honest menu where half the items has their defined places on each OS and the rest can be found easily it is a jumbled mess. And since there are no standards as for where to put things in a hamburger menu they can move around between each release of the application. And the only reason to use it instead of an honest menu is because Chrome does it so therefore it must be a good idea. Period. It is somewhat ironic that even as desktop screens get larger and larger applications has to "maximize real screen estate" by removing menus, while simultaneously working to remove real screen space improvements like the option of Tree Style Tabs on Firefox (yes, it kind of works and it is still awesome but it get harder and harder by the year).
jug 5y ago
Isn’t it because it’s the “Misc” counterpart to the preferences tabs?

> Whenever I see a hamburger menu I silently think "Here someone has given up" Can you explain what you don’t like about hamburger menus?

by nojs 5y ago

> Whenever I see a hamburger menu I silently think "Here someone has given up" Can you explain what you don’t like about hamburger menus?

toxik 5y ago

It is the “etc” of UI design. It’s a cop out most of the time.

happymellon 5y ago

Is a dumpster of features, you have no idea what you'll find in there. Has someone hidden the zoom buttons in there? How about print? Perhaps that's also where save is, or tab colour? Most things in the hamburger menu are completely unrelated but exist for the removal of context. Button outlines so you have no idea what you can and cannot click on as well, which is mentioned in the fine article, are all modern design patterns. Looks over functionality. Hamburger menu is just peak modern menus. Lazy.

rezonant 5y ago
So on desktop applications, I assume you prefer all your functions to be on toolbars, and you have similar disdain whenever you encounter a File menu? I guess if there's a lot of functions, you probably need some tabs on your toolbar- so the Office Ribbon interface is idyllic I assume?
- eqvinox 5y ago
  The difference between a file menu and an hamburger icon is that the file menu hides file operations while the hamburger icon hides… anything. something. dead bodies.
  - rezonant 5y ago
    Almost every desktop application has a File menu whether or not it deals with files. The File menu has an "Exit" item. Does it Exit the File? OBS has "Always on Top" as an option within "File". Or we can look at it from the other side. "Where do I find the settings for this app?". Is it in File, Edit, View, Tools or Help. The answer depends on the app. Menus can be well organized or poorly organized but I don't think we should be banishing menus. The hamburger icon is just an iconic, space efficient way to say "menu"
    - heisenzombie 5y ago
      There are guidelines for what should be in menu bars, what order the items should be in, and how they should behave for different sorts of application. For example, on Mac: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/menus/menu-bar-menus/ https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline... And on Windows: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/cmd-menus https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/cmd-m... > "Where do I find the settings for this app?". Is it in File, Edit, View, Tools or Help? On Mac, it should be in the "App" menu and called "Preferences...", it should be the first item in the menu, except if you have an "About YourAppName" item which always goes at the top with a seperator underneath. On Windows, it should be in the "Tools" menu, and called "Options...". 4 On Linux, it should be under the "Edit" menu, and called "Preferences". If it's not, then the app (in my opinion) is broken. Of course, many apps are lazily ported across platforms or "hamburgerized". The Windows situation is obviously also more messy because of the newer "ribbon" standards complicating things a bit, but there are right answers. (edit: fixed links)
      - rezonant 5y ago
        Of course there are ancient, rarely updated guidelines that almost all applications ignore. Microsoft indeed has that great guide, and yet their own applications implement it inconsistently, and often incorrectly according to the guidelines. Apple is a tad bit better, but third party apps rarely get it right. The best thing Apple has going for it is specifically on the question of where Settings is: there is a dedicated app menu, so it just makes logical sense to put Settings there. Or was it Preferences? Options. > On Linux, it should be under the "Edit" menu, and called "Preferences". This one is a stretch, there are no such consistent and agreed-upon guidelines. My point here is that just because things can be abused (or even, in the case of desktop applications, are almost _always_ abused), doesn't mean the general concept is useless or should be removed from applications. I would recommend instead of trying to cram a hundred possible actions into a tiny icon bar at the bottom of your iPhone, or removing 97 of those actions from the app itself and leaving just the most basic three down there, to maybe consider building a sensible and well-arranged menu layout _if and when_ you need more than those three that you can fit at the bottom.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- samtheDamned 5y ago
  The ribbon menu was actually a step in the right direction for desktop only UI paradigm
eloisius 5y ago
Yep. It's the miscellaneous everything bucket. It also seems to only be motivated by either scarce screen real estate (it first showed up in mobile interfaces), or graphic designers who think everything is "clutter" and by sweeping it away into the hamburger menu they can have their beautiful screenshot-worthy interface. I have a 27" monitor, but tons of websites and even Firefox itself hide half the functionality behind a hamburger.
- prox 5y ago
  Originally the top menu was to have a way to access to all functions. Many still do (say LibreOffice) The hamburger is kind of a weird breed of design signaling because of it. In some desktop apps it still is the original top menu, but not always. On websites and apps it can vary tremendously. However, a top menu is not an expert level mode, it’s a beginners / proficient level mode. Expert level means using keyboard shortcuts. Context driven display and modes are far more valuable when meeting spacial constraints. But that can be hard when you are dealing with many form factors and so the quick fix is the hamburger.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    > Expert level means using keyboard shortcuts. This is true when you use only an editor and a debugger. When you need to use 10 programs each with its own keyboard shorcuts (which, BTW you need to search in internet which they are because the company doing the software did not bother to make them accessible in a help menu) you're gonna have a hard time. In the (1985) past you had for such things a holder attached to your keyboard where you had a listing of those keyboard shortcuts. Now the world has evolved and we have ... tada... the hamburger menu. P.S. I would not feel good as a developer to know that someone , somewhere curses me and my family constantly for the work i done.
    - microtonal 5y ago
      which, BTW you need to search in internet which they are because the company doing the software did not bother to make them accessible in a help menu At least on macOS and Windows the shortcuts are shown in the (traditional) menu bar. With GNOME's use of hamburgers, it's anyone's guess. As someone who likes shortcuts, I found it very hard to figure out shortcuts in GNOME apps that have a lot of functionality hidden away. (Aside from keyboard shortcuts not being very consistent between apps on Linux.)
nojs 5y ago
I see what you mean. Brave on desktop comes to mind as an offender.
ratww 5y ago
> Is a dumpster of features, you have no idea what you'll find in there. I feel the same way about notifications. Both native notifications and notifications via e-mail. It is no longer easy to find out if something changed or happened in most websites/applications. You must be bombarded with notifications all the time, and god forbid you take an extended break or something goes into your spam folder, because if you snooze you lose. JIRA for me is the worst in this regard.
- gigaflop 5y ago
  One of the first things I do with a fresh work inbox is set rules to push things into non-default folders. And then, I proceed to never look at them unless I'm digging for something. 61 unread notifications from Az Devops? Nah, I don't need to read those. I was watching that build in the background, I know it failed. Mobile notifications should offer more filtering options at the system level. Why do I need to trust an app developer to respect my notification preferences? Why should I rely on the developer to build granularity into their push notification frequency? It all gets simpler when you can filter at the 'inbox'.
SomeInterwebDev 5y ago
Declaring a tool good or bad because it's abused doesn't make sense.

eitland 5y ago

It is just a menu. But instead of being an ordinary honest menu where half the items has their defined places on each OS and the rest can be found easily it is a jumbled mess. And since there are no standards as for where to put things in a hamburger menu they can move around between each release of the application. And the only reason to use it instead of an honest menu is because Chrome does it so therefore it must be a good idea. Period. It is somewhat ironic that even as desktop screens get larger and larger applications has to "maximize real screen estate" by removing menus, while simultaneously working to remove real screen space improvements like the option of Tree Style Tabs on Firefox (yes, it kind of works and it is still awesome but it get harder and harder by the year).

jug 5y ago

Isn’t it because it’s the “Misc” counterpart to the preferences tabs?