Don’t Hide Items Away in a “Hamburger” Menu

Few UI patterns can be as controversial as the hamburger menu. Over the past five years, it’s become the de facto way of offering a menu on small displays, typically as a website scales into mobile or tablet width using responsive design:

Figure 29.1: The dreaded hamburger

Research shows (from Hamburger Menus and Hidden Navigation Hurt UX Metrics, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/hamburger-menus/) that hamburger menus:

• Slow down discovery time for users
• Increase perceived task difficulty
• Increase the time it takes to complete a task

Simply put, the hamburger menu hides items away from users and makes them less discoverable. Additionally, because the menu is hidden, users can’t gain a sense of “where they are” in the product.

It’s worth noting that since the research linked above was undertaken, users have been exposed to the hamburger...