Do or Die with the infamous hamburger menu? Find out if your hamburger menu is doing more harm than good to your user experience.

1. THE HAMBURGER
MENU

3. DESIGNED BY NORM COX
Founder of Cox&Hall (product designers), worked at Xerox
when he designed the Burger Menu.
“I designed that symbol many years ago as a
"container" for contextual menu choices.”

5. BACK IN THE DAY
https://vimeo.com/61556918

6. WHY AND HOW
TO AVOID USING A
BURGER MENU

7. THE BIG DEAL?
Research shows that Sidebar menus (sometimes
called Hamburger Menus/Basements) might be
causing more harm than good.

8. THE PROBLEMS
1. Lower Discoverability
2. Less Efficient
3. Clash with Platform Navigation Patterns
4. Not Glanceable

9. LOWER
DISCOVERABILITY

10. LOWER DISCOVERABILITY
- Stays hidden in default state
- Audience need to be able to identify it first or the
company needs to label the Burger Menu as “Menu”
- This would not be necessary if main screen offers
majority of the value
“what’s out of sight, is out of mind.”

11. LESS
EFFICIENT

12. LESS EFFICIENT
Even if people are aware and value a feature, this pattern
introduces navigation friction.
It forces people to first open the menu - then allows them to
see and reach their goal.
It slows your user down.

13. SPOT THE
DIFFERENCE

15. “Instant navigation is
when the navigation
elements are always
visible.”

16. CLASH WITH PLATFORM
NAVIGATION PATTERNS

17. CLASH WITH PLATFORM
In platforms such as iOS, the burger menu simply cannot be
implemented without clashing with the standard navigation
patterns.
The left Navigation Bar Button would need to reserved for
the menu button but we also need to allow the person to
navigate back.

18. CLASH WITH PLATFORM
Designers will either commit the mistake pictured above and
overload the Navigation Bar - not even leaving space for the
screen title
OR
Force people to navigate several screens to get to the
menu.

20. NOT
GLANCEABLE

21. NOT GLANCEABLE
It’s hard to surface information about specific items as they’
re only visible when the person navigates into other sections
of the app.
In contrast, the Tab Bar taken from Twitter, lets the user
understand the context of the notification and navigate
directly to the screen associated with it.
http://mor10.com/hamburger-bad/

25. THE
SOLUTION

26. WHEN SHOULD I USE IT?
There might be some very rare occasions where this pattern
actually makes sense, but the general rule is to avoid it
altogether.
“The solution is reviewing your information
architecture.”

27. WHAT SHOULD I USE INSTEAD?
Below is an example of how to move away from a
Sidebar/Burger Menu. You can follow the color coded dots
to understand how the elements transition between these
two solutions.

29. INTERESTING
FACTS