Why avoid using hamburger menus?

Why avoid using hamburger menus?

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival. I hate the Mid-Autumn Festival since last year, because bad things have started since the Mid-Autumn Festival last year.

Well, it seems that I haven't updated my blog for some days. Instead of having no time or energy, I am not in the mood. In the past, autumn holidays, such as the Mid-Autumn Festival or the 11th festival, were the easiest and most eager to do various things and read various books. Now, the greatest wish is that everything is safe. Not much; it's still about hamburgers.

Recently, more and more research and tests show that sidebar menus, also known as hamburger menus, are likely to be a design pattern that has more disadvantages than advantages.

However, we also need to know that this problem is actually very subtle, and it is difficult for us to judge it based on a different standard; what I have observed in a series of availability tests also proves this point.

Therefore, I personally only hope that you will be able to fully understand the problems, possible results, and some related alternatives in this model before making design decisions.

Problem

1. Low discoverability

2. Low Efficiency

3. conflicts with the system Navigation Mode

4. not clear enough

1. Low discoverability

If you are not in sight, you are not in cognition.

By default, the sidebar menu and all content are invisible.

In addition, to make the interface Really available, first let people know that the icons that trigger the sidebar to expand are clickable buttons. We have seen many products add a "menu" next to the hamburger icon, or use a bubble prompt to tell users that they can click here. Obviously, they also feel this problem. This approach is not undesirable, but adding such elements in the most important interface of the application is still a disturbance to core functions.

2. Low Efficiency

Even if users know the existence of the sidebar menu, they will still feel the friction when using the navigation, because this mode requires users to open the menu first before they can find their own goals.

What is displayed is the mode of having a traditional fixed navigation system (tab bar). The functional modules are clear at a glance, and the entries are always visible:

3. conflicts with the system Navigation Mode

This is the most prominent issue in all cases. For example, in iOS, it is difficult to place both the menu button and the standard back button in the navigation bar without causing any conflict.

We need to place the hamburger icon in the navigation bar to call out the menu, and also need to roll back the button so that the user can return the previous level of content. Finally, it is either the crowded solution shown in, or the explicit navigation is canceled, forcing people to slide right again and again to return to the initial interface and summon the sidebar menu.

4. not clear enough

By default, you cannot obtain the information of a specific module, because the menu itself is hidden. To understand the information in the module, you must first enter the module through the menu.

Of course, the Jawbone UP application can directly use icons to represent information. However, the scalability of this method is not strong. You may need to maintain a set of multiple icons for different types of content. In the end, you have to present information prompts in a more general way to reduce complexity; from the perspective of "being clear at a glance", the results are still similar.

The fixed tab bar allows users to clearly understand what is happening in each module in any context and allows them to access relevant interfaces at any time.

User Cognition

As designers, we may have to use the hamburger mode to save space available. However, in reality, what do people think about the interface? We may have misunderstandings in this regard. You think people can see everything in front of their eyes. In fact, they can only notice a focal point, even if the size of the screen is small.

Saves screen space-we can try to achieve this goal in other ways that do not negatively affect navigation; the most basic human-computer interaction design principles still need to be followed, for example, you can provide feedback to users at a glance and display the current state of the application.

When to use hamburger menu

Strictly speaking, according to our previous analysis, there are not many meaningful hamburger menus. In most cases, we should avoid using them as much as possible. However, exceptions still exist.

IRCCloud is a good example. Here, the hamburger menu mode is more advantageous than the disadvantage, because IRCCloud has two sets of navigation at the same time, through the hamburger menu, you can go to the channel menu and member menu in the same interface environment for navigation.

This usage is acceptable. Its content interface only has a level-1 structure, and there are no lower-level interfaces. There is no need for layer-by-layer navigation, so there will be no navigation conflicts.

Even so, we can see that the information load in the navigation bar is already quite serious.

Other negative results are also obvious. The member menu button on the right occupies the location where the action button is usually placed, and operations related to the current interface are nowhere to be placed. Designers have no choice but to integrate context-related operations into the Action menu triggered by setting buttons in the lower left corner.

Paleburger menu

Which of the following prices do you want? The price for each store is different.
 
Baker burger menu

The menu price varies with the season, shop size, and so on (dinner, catering, and the selected package graphic details :)

1. All buckets

2. dual-layer beef burger

3. Bacon chicken leg fort

4. maixiang chicken leg fort

5. Old Beijing chicken roll

6. chuanxiang dual-layer chicken leg fort

7. Braised Chicken leg

8. Pig

9. braised pork with mushrooms

10. braised beef with red wine

11. Braised Chicken bread

12. Mashed Potatoes

13. Corn Salad

14. Sweet Corn

15. Portuguese-style tart

16. blueberry tart

17. Competition