Hamburger menus perform poorly

Duncan Stephen
Wednesday 18 February 2015

Why we banished the hamburger menu from our iPhone app

The hamburger menu is one of the oldest icons in the history of graphical user interfaces. It was included in the Xerox Star, one of the first ever graphical user interfaces. It has recently seen a renaissance on websites and apps due to the space constraints of mobile devices.

But many website and app owners have reported that the use of the hamburger menu or a navigation drawer has a negative impact on engagement. Often important features go undiscovered in a hidden menu that goes unnoticed by many users, or even confuses them.

In this article, Redbooth have outlined how they went about redesigning their service to get rid of the hamburger menu. Removing a navigation drawer can mean making tough choices in terms of how to prioritise features. Redbooth rationalised their navigation so that it would fit on a mobile screen. The result was an overnight increase in engagement, with daily sessions more than doubling.

This goes to show that it can be worth the effort of rationalising navigation menus. It can involve making some difficult decisions, but by focusing on the core user needs you can fundamentally improve the user experience.

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